


Convenient to the Longing

by Miri1984



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Body Horror, Flashbacks, Gen, Lots of Angst, PTSD, Torture, lots of other people will probably turn up, not nice things happening to bucky, not nice things happening to steve, recovery bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-23
Updated: 2014-09-10
Packaged: 2018-02-05 23:21:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 30
Words: 47,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1835917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miri1984/pseuds/Miri1984
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set post Soldier/Ghost and Pre What Makes Me Happy. Flashbacks to what happened to Bucky when he fell from the train -- Hydra shenannigans, horrible horrible people doing horrible horrible things. Basically an excuse to write Steve and Bucky angst. Bucky is back, but he has seventy years of memories to sort through, and some of them are ones he'd rather forget. Winter Soldier compliant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Sam hadn’t been kidding when he’d told Steve the mission he was on wasn’t to find James Buchanan Barnes. His mission had always been to help Steve keep it together while they tried, and sure it’d ended up being a little bit more complicated than that (what with the vampires and the crazed burnt to a crisp ex hydra agents and the burning androids) but he’d kept his word. On the tarmac at Topanga Sam had started to realise that the job was going to be a little bit more complicated even than that. Whoever the Winter Soldier was, he wasn’t James Buchanan Barnes, not yet, and the search he’d promised Steve to go on was far from over.

Back at Avengers Tower, Clint had offered to take him back to DC, but Sam had ended up calling the VA and asking to extend his leave. He called his sister too, to make sure she checked on his apartment, asked Clint if he didn’t mind him crashing on the couch. Clint had done one better and called up Tony Stark, who basically gave Sam the use of an apartment in Avengers Tower and told Sam not to refuse it considering “We really desperately need someone who has your kind of experience, Wilson,” and Sam caught that glimpse in Stark’s eyes that had been there in Clint’s, and Nat’s, and most definitely Steve’s.

They were all veterans of the weirdest wars humanity had ever fought and Sam suddenly realised he could have all the work he wanted right here.

Just until Steve was back on his feet, he vowed. And he sent another message to his sister, to pack up more of his things.

The first day of Barnes’ recovery had been all right. Steve had come out smiling — the kind of smile Sam had only seen before the trouble started, after that run, when they’d just been another couple of guys pounding the pavement to keep the memories at bay. Bucky had remembered his name, on his own, prompted by nothing but Steve’s face. Steve’d been happy enough to let the therapists in, although he’d been a little upset that they wouldn’t let him stay. There’d been a long session — taped — and Steve had gone back in when the Soldier was sleeping and just sat there. There were cameras in the room and Sam and Natasha and Tony had spent a little bit of time watching Steve as he sat there, sketching as the Soldier slept. Every now and then they caught glimpses of the drawings taking shape under his hands, big, blunt hands, made for holding a weapon and punching, cradling the charcoal with delicacy and skill.

They were pictures of Bucky Barnes.

The first one is of him in the bed he’s sleeping in, and that one hurts to look at because Steve is _good_ and there is no doubt that he’s drawing this picture from life. Barnes is soft and gentle in sleep the way he never was when he was awake, lips parted, hair falling over one side of his face. He looks so much younger without all the black leather and weaponry and Sam has to remind himself that for all Steve’s in his nineties he was only twenty seven when he went into the ice, Barnes was only a year older.

As the soldier sleeps on though, Steve draws more, and they catch glimpses as he works. Barnes in his old army uniform, Barnes in a suit and tie with his hair slicked back giving a lopsided grin.

They’re all rough sketches, obviously drawn from memory. Steve puts the book aside for a while then, and Tasha and Sam, satisfied for the moment at least that the Soldier isn’t going to wake up and try to continue his mission, leave. Sam wants Steve to come out of there, eat something, maybe sleep himself, but he figures he can give him a little bit of time. 

He knows if it was Riley there he wouldn’t want to leave him to wake up on his own.

The alarms that go off aren’t exactly unexpected.

Tasha and Sam are the first ones there, although Tony isn’t far behind. 

Steve is pinned against a wall, the Winter Soldier (and Sam has no doubt that’s who this is) has his metal arm up under his chin, pushing into the flesh. Steve’s managed to get one hand under it, and is holding him back, barely. The sketchbook is on the ground, the charcoal scattered, and the scariest thing about this whole situation is that there is no sound but the alarm and the heavy breathing of the two men. Steve’s eyes are locked on the Soldier’s face and Sam can damned well _see_ that he’s not fighting back, he’s just trying to stop the Soldier from doing anything permanent (although there is blood dripping down Steve’s cheek and his shirt is ripped). He sees Sam and tries to shake his head. “Get back,” he rasps out. “It’s all right, he just hasn’t come out of the dream yet.”

“Steve he needs to be sedated,” Tony is behind them, but it’s Natasha who has the hypodermic, and Steve _growls_ at them. 

“Get that thing out of here,” he says. “He doesn’t need it.”

Maybe it’s the sound of Steve’s voice, or perhaps the presence of other people, but the Winter Soldier’s grip on Steve loosens, and he turns his head to look at Sam. He’s not tracking, lost in something, the memories or the dream or hell, Sam isn’t quite sure.

“Hey, man,” he says, suddenly completely out of his depth. “It’s okay. Don’t hurt Steve he’s trying to help you.”

The eyes shift back to Steve and widen. The voice that comes out is hoarse and Sam suddenly wonders if in his dream, he’d been screaming. “Steve?”

Steve draws a big breath, reaching up with his hands to Barnes’ shoulders, but Barnes flinches away. The brief look of hurt that crosses Steve’s face is quashed and he nods slowly. “Yeah, Bucky.”

Barnes’ eyes track all over Steve’s face, see the blood and the torn shirt and he backs away, hands up head shaking back and forth. “God. God. No no no. Did I hurt you? _Steve._ I hurt you.”

“No. I’m _fine_ Bucky.”

Barnes’ lip curls up and he speaks with such vehemence that Sam winces. “Don’t fucking _lie_ to me.”

Steve looks completely helpless at that and Sam feels like he has to come forward before they cut each others’ hearts out of their chests. “Barnes?” he says. 

He’s breathing heavily but the cold look is gone from his face when he looks at Sam. His whole body is still facing Steve, the metal hand is clenching and unclenching, the sound of the gears whirring surreal and terrifying. “Wilson,” he says. His eyes shift to Natasha and the hypodermic and one of his eyebrows twitches. “I don’t need that. Just get Steve out of here.”

Steve’s voice cracks. “Bucky…”

“GO, Steve. And for fuck’s sake don’t be in here when I wake up next time.” 

Steve goes. Tony looks at Sam who honestly doesn’t know who he wants to help more. “The rest of you can fuck off as well,” Barnes says. Natasha takes Sam’s arm and leads him towards the door, and roughly shoves Tony out with them. 

“Cameras,” she says softly. “There’s nothing in here he can hurt himself with. We need to give him space.”

The illusion of it, Sam thinks. He can’t see Steve when he gets outside, and Tony mutters something about scaring Pepper with alarms in the middle of the damned night _again,_ as he stalks back to his floor. Natasha melts away and Sam is left to try to find Steve.

It doesn’t take long. Steve is, predictably, in the monitor room, looking at Barnes, who is still standing, breathing heavily, but otherwise completely still. 

“Steve, you okay?” 

Steve looks up at Sam and gives him a smile and a nod, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Thanks, Sam. You got through to him when I couldn’t.”

“Did he have a nightmare?”

“I think so. Just. Woke up and assumed I was a threat. I know the feeling sometimes, especially the first few days after you’ve been captured.”

“You’ve been captured?”

Steve smiles and gives a little shrug. “Couple of times. Didn’t take, usually.” Sam remembered the shackles they’d snapped Steve into in that van back in DC. Steve had gone into them willingly enough. But Hydra had some pretty specific schematics on what would hold Captain America in place and he guessed they might have learned a few things since the last time they’d had him in custody. Steve keeps looking back at the monitor, crossing his arms across his chest. His shoulders aren’t hunched, but Sam thinks if he wasn’t in here with him, they would.

“You should get some sleep, man,” he says. “He’s safe now.”

Steve shakes his head a tiny bit, then frowns and leans forward. Barnes has moved, to where the sketch book is lying on the floor. His head tilts as he looks at it, frowning, before he leans down and picks it up with his flesh hand. Sam hears the sudden intake of breath from Steve, who is looking at the monitor like it’s a lifeline.

“You’re pretty good at that, Steve,” Sam says a little desperately. He doesn’t know what Barnes’ reaction to the sketches will be, but he can’t imagine it will anywhere close to good.

“I went to school,” he says, eyes still focused on the monitor. “Bucky helped pay the tuition for me. Worked in the WPA program to pay him back.” There’s a short breath that could be mistaken for a chuckle. “I had a long way to go by the time we got to the front though. Captain’s pay checks were a little better than what the government gave me to draw murals but I still owed him money when he…”

When he fell.

“Yeah well. You’ve got a lot of talent.” Barnes holds the book in his hands and looks at it for a few moments. Sam doesn’t know why, but he feels protective of it, somehow, like Barnes is going to damage the pictures that Steve made. He doesn’t though. He opens it, and starts thumbing through them.

The sketch book is old — it’s obviously one that Steve’s been using for a while. When he was sketching earlier he’d been half way through the book and at the beginning there are a few that Sam missed, of a woman he doesn’t recognise, another one he knows is Peggy Carter. One of Sam that makes Sam smile a little — he’s got the gap between Sam’s teeth and he doesn’t think Steve got his best side. 

Steve’s hands creak on the back of the chair he is leaning on. Barnes has reached the pictures Steve was drawing earlier, of Bucky, sleeping. Of Bucky in his uniform. The final one, though — 

It’s a picture of Barnes, twice over, one in the iconic costume Sam can remember from the Smithsonian institute, but he’s holding Steve’s shield in his left hand, pointing a pistol. The other side is of Barnes in the full Winter Soldier get up, also holding the shield, up to his face so only the eyes are visible. A lot more care has been taken with this one than with the previous rough sketches. The first Barnes — the one from the war — has been drawn in excruciating detail. It feels cold, the light hitting the shield is like winter, and there’s even the beginnings of a background there — metal floors, shelving, a narrow corridor. Maybe a train carriage _._ The second sketch is much darker, the lines are heavier, as though Steve didn’t want to draw them and had to force them out. The uniform and the shield aren’t done in as much detail as in the first drawing, but Barnes’ eyes are so realistic that Sam thinks he can see the moisture in them. Barnes looks at it for a long moment, then hurls the book away from him, swearing in Russian. The drawing rips free and flutters to the ground and Barnes looks at it like it’s an insect for a second before turning his back.

Sam _feels_ Steve crumple, even though his expression doesn’t change, even though he doesn’t move.

“Steve.”

Steve shakes his head and stands up. He gives Sam another one of those not-smiles and nods. “You’re right,” he says softly. “I need to get some rest.” He stalks out of the room and leaves Sam looking at the monitor. He should go too, but he can’t stop watching, feeling that something is missing, that the story hasn’t finished. It’s eerie how still Barnes is and Sam can’t help wondering if there is actually anything going on in his head at all. Is it static? Blank noise? Or are seventy years of memories trying to crowd into that head at once?

Eventually Barnes sinks down onto the bed again, hands loose, elbows on his knees, facing away from the camera.

After a moment his shoulders start to shake and he drops his head in his hands.

That story, for now, is not one that Sam needs to see; he makes his way back to the apartment.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s cold.

He lies on the bank of a stream — it’s water only running because of it’s swiftness. Ice crusts the edges, where he is caught between a rock and a piece of driftwood, ratty bark scraping against his cheek and leaving dirt marks like charcoal over his skin.

He cannot move.

He has to move.

His legs are still immersed in the water. Something — he thinks training — kicks in. The temperature is too low, if he stays in the water he’ll die of hypothermia. He needs to get out of his wet clothes, he needs to find brush that is dry enough to shelter him from the worst of the cold, he needs to find food to replace the blood that he’s lost — he knows that he has lost a lot of it — the water pooling around his cheek and chin is thick with it.

He heaves himself up further onto the back with the arm that is out of the water, pain nearly flattening him as soon as he tries to move. He flops onto his back, staring at a sky dark with snow clouds, then tries to undo the buckles of his vest.

That’s when he discovers why there was so much blood.

He screams until he blacks out.

 

He wakes because of the pain. He can’t remember where he’s been, only that it’s cold. So cold. There is a man, dressed like a Russian soldier, looking down at him. He says something in Russian, but he cannot understand, and the words are like icicles in his ears, stabbing him. He shuts his eyes to try to block it out, wants to cover his ears with his hands.

Something about his hands makes his heart pound and he looks down. There. He can see the stump resting in the snow. His brain refuses to comprehend it. There’s red mixed in with the white and the dirt, but he doesn’t understand why there’s so little blood. By all rights he should be dead. He has to bite his tongue to stop himself from screaming again. Instead he shudders and looks away.

They’ve dragged him from the stream’s edge, and they’re discussing what to do with him. They’re allies. How he knows that, he is unsure, just that the sound of the Russian, the familiar words (he can understand about one in ten) and the word, _allies_ sits in his chest, a calm certainty. He hasn’t been captured, he’s been rescued. 

It is an important difference. He’s supposed to be fighting. Supposed to be protecting something. Someone. He can’t remember.

They see that he is awake and start to talk more urgently in Russian. One of them sets up a radio, and another kneels next to him, starting to strip him of clothes and weapons. He shouts again at the pain as they tie a tourniquet around the stump of his arm, field medicine, crude and ridiculous. He’s going to die here, even in the hands of his rescuers, and he needs to accept that and stop fighting against the blackness that keeps trying to swallow him.

But there’s something he hasn’t done and it won’t let him rest. A mission. A man.

He struggles to sit upright.

“Stop, American,” the soldier pushes him back into the snow, his English clear but heavily accented. “Ты убьешь себя.”

He falls back, grunting in pain, and they finish stripping him. They wrap him in blankets and load him into the back of a truck. For the first time since he woke, he does not feel cold.

That’s because the fever has set in.


	3. Chapter 3

In the morning, when Steve and Sam go back to Barnes’ room, the sketch book is neatly arranged on the bedside table, the torn page reinserted and smoothed flat, only a slight ruffling of the edges of the pages any indication that it has been damaged at all. Steve looks at it for a moment, and the charcoals that are next to it. He pockets the charcoal but leaves the sketchbook. Sam wants to tell him to take it with him. Yesterday he’d wanted to protect the sketchbook from Barnes, but today he feels the opposite. The book will hurt Barnes.

Maybe Steve is leaving it because of that. The thought troubles Sam a little. Chips at the picture he has of Steve in his head.

“Thank you for waiting until I woke up,” Barnes says, dully. He’s sitting in the chair by the window, bare feet on the slate floor, wearing sweatpants and a loose t-shirt. He’s thin, despite the stringy ropes of muscle. There’s something wrong with his silhouette, and Sam realises with a jolt that the metal arm is bigger than the flesh arm. Not by much, but enough to make everything subtly unbalanced.

It makes sense. He’s been out of Hydra hands for weeks now, on the run, and he probably hasn’t eaten properly that whole time. It’s possible even that the arm is very rarely the same size, the soldier’s uniform was so layered with weaponry and leather that it was impossible to see Barnes’ true physique under it all. 

Steve glances to the table in the corner where a breakfast has been laid out — eggs, toast, bacon, juice. Pancakes even. There are a few crusts of toast, bites taken out precisely leaving only the edges, but everything else is on the tray, cold.

“You need to eat something Bucky,” Steve says. 

“Tastes weird,” Bucky replies. His eyes slide to Sam. “I’m not going to attack him today. The dreams were different.”

“I’m here for moral support,” Sam replies. “And I’m…” he glances at Steve.

“Sam works with veterans, Bucky,” he says. “Helps them readjust. He’s helped me a lot, since I woke up. And he’s my friend.”

Bucky looks highly skeptical, running his eyes up and down Sam, until Steve says he’s a friend, then he shrugs. It’s not the entire truth, Sam being here as someone to help Bucky. The others — Hill and Natasha and Stark, agreed that there should be someone else in the room with Bucky when Steve visits. Steve had protested, but they’d stood firm on it, to the point where Stark had point blank refused to let him in alone. 

Steve sits on the bed. The room is lavishly furnished, in that kind of simplistic style that screams money to Sam. The apartment Stark has leant him is less expensive looking, but Sam suspects that doesn’t actually mean it is less expensive. In it, Sam feels like an imposter and has to resist the urge to fluff all the towels in the cupboards and search the bathroom for little bottles of shampoo (there aren’t any, he still has to do his own groceries). 

Bucky’s room — it’s an apartment as well but the kitchen is closed off — is sleeker, less personalised. There are no objects that can be made into weapons (at least, no objects that _Sam_ could make into a weapon, he isn’t sure about the Winter Soldier) and there are no pictures on the walls.

He glances again at the sketchbook on the bedside table.

“Bucky…” Steve’s voice is steady with a hint of pleading and Barnes heaves a sigh, getting up and going back to the tray. He eats, mechanically, even though the bacon is cold and the eggs probably have the consistency of rubber. 

“So what do they want me to do today,” Barnes asks. 

“You have therapy at eleven,” Steve says, watching as he eats. “But I needed to let you know that they want to take you down to medical to do some scans. Now that you’re awake they want to monitor your brain functions.” Steve glances at Sam. “They can’t do that here.” Barnes’ hand stills on the way to his mouth for a second, before he takes another bite, chewing more slowly now. 

“When?”

“As soon as you’ve finished eating.”

He puts the fork down and stands up. He’s not wearing shoes, the sweatpants are slung low on hips that are all bone, and the difference in size between the metal and the flesh arm is even more pronounced. Sam feels an ache of desperate sympathy, but he’s not sure if it’s for Barnes or for Steve, who’s eyes are running over the other man as though he could patch him back together with just the power of his gaze. “Easy, Buck,” Steve says. “You can finish your breakfast first. They’re not on a schedule.”

They are, but Sam lets that one slide.

Bucky shakes his head. “Tastes weird,” he says again, then looks down at his feet. The clothes he’s wearing are the same he slept in, and Sam can catch a faint whiff of his sweat. Half of the bacon is gone, and a third of the eggs, and Steve seems to think that will do for now. 

“I’ll pick you up something else after we’ve seen the doctor,” he says. “You’ll need a shower first, and there’s clothes.” Barnes nods and pads towards the bathroom, moving silently with his bare feet on the tiles. “Do you need help?” Steve asks.

“I can work a damned shower, Steve,” Barnes’ voice floats back as the door to the bathroom bangs open. There are cameras in there too, although Steve had protested against that. Tony had told him to relax, the only person watching that feed would be Jarvis. 

Sam touches Steve’s shoulder once Barnes is out of earshot and they can hear the water flowing. “Hey.” Steve looks at him, and takes a deep breath. “It’s gonna take time, you know that.” Steve gives a little nod, eyes shifting to the closed bathroom door again. “Dude he’s _safe_ and you’re here and it’s gonna…”

“It’s not, Sam. It’s not going to be all right, okay?” Steve speaks softly, but firmly. “You can’t look at him and say that.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Sam says. “I was going to say it’s going to be hard, but it’s going to be harder for him and for you if you look at him like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like he’s going to break.”

“Is that how I’m looking at him?” 

“He’s been broken down to nothing already, Steve, you’re not going to do any worse to him. You can help.”

Steve shakes his head. “I want to help. But maybe Nat’s right and he needs to do this on his own.”

“Maybe he does,” Sam says and Steve gets that damned puppy look again. “But let _him_ tell you that. Don’t decide for him.”

“Yeah,” Steve says softly. “He’s had enough of that.” 

The water stops. Barnes hasn’t been in the shower long enough to do anything but a quick rinse, but Sam guesses he’s used to being efficient. He opens the door and there’s no steam, and Barnes comes out completely naked, towelling his hair. Sam steps back but Steve doesn’t seem to care, and he remembers that these two grew up together, it’s almost definitely nothing that Steve hasn’t seen before. 

“You didn’t use the hot water, Bucky,” Steve says. 

“There was only one tap,” Barnes shrugs.

“You move it to the middle,” Steve says, “it confused me the first time too, I can show you…”

“‘M clean now,” Barnes says, going to the closet where there are clothes. It’s all pretty much the same stuff, sweatpants and loose shirts, underwear. They’ve got his size wrong, though, it’s all just a little bit too big. Barnes pulls it on anyway, tying the pants up so they don’t ride quite so low on his hips. Water from his hair drips onto the shirt, and the red star on his shoulder starts to show through the wet fabric. Steve’s hands twitch at his side, and Sam can feel the want in him, but he puts a hand on Steve’s arm. Barnes’ is doing things for himself, he doesn’t need the help that Steve wants to give him, and Steve needs to stop acting like a mother hen for five minutes.

Barnes slips his feet into the soft leather moccasins they have for him and looks up. Wet hair trails around his face. He hasn’t shaved. 

He looks like hell. But at least he doesn’t smell any more.

“Ready,” he says, and there’s a defiant tilt to his head that almost makes Sam smile. Barnes can tell what Steve wants to do as well, and he’s pushing against it, trying to hit Steve’s buttons. Sam has seen Steve take out guys with rail guns with nothing but a shield and his hands, seen him fall of a damned helicarrier and not lose his calm, but the tension that a few cocky words from Barnes can spark in him is insane.

“Fine,” Steve says from between clenched teeth. “Come on.”

Barnes takes everything in as they leave the apartment, including the door lock — palm print and retinal scan keyed to his doctors, Stark, and Steve. Not that Sam thinks it would keep Barnes in the apartment if he didn’t want to be there — the metal hand can rip the doors off cars (or the wings out of a socket) without any real difficulty. If Barnes really wanted to leave he’d be gone and Sam wouldn’t put money on them finding him again in a hurry. Without the tracer in his arm, without Brock Rumlow and Hydra’s attempt to take Steve, he doubts they would have found him in the first place. 

The sick bay of Avengers tower is a new addition, according to Steve. Stark had it fitted when they’d done the rebuild. It’s like something out of Star Trek. Very little white - all soft mauves and raised benches and gently beeping machinery. Still, Barnes hesitates at the doorway. Steve puts a hand lightly on his back, and this time he doesn't shuck off the support — he even leans into it a bit. The doctor is a woman — no one he recognises, but she gives Steve a familiar smile and he wonders if she used to be SHIELD. Barnes seems to relax a little when he sees her, and Sam wonders how much of that is because she’s young and dressed in a simple shirt and pants — there’s nothing to indicate she’s a doctor.

"Sergeant," she says. "I'm Linda Carter, I used to work with the Captain. You can call me Linda.” 

"In SHIELD,” Barnes says. Sam wonders if he knows exactly how closely SHIELD and Hydra were intertwined — wonders if Barnes even makes the distinction between them. The doctor's eyes darken a little, and she looks at Steve. 

"Yes," she says. "But not any more."

"SHIELD doesn't exist any more, Bucky," Steve says. He says it with finality, and a touch of pride, and it's the right thing to say because both the doctor and Barnes seem to relax at that. 

The break up of SHIELD wasn’t smooth anywhere, Sam knows. It’s possible that the Doctor is very pleased to be away from them. 

"If you can lie here, Sergeant, I’ll hook you up to the monitors…"

They get him hooked up and he doesn’t look comfortable, no, but there are no signs of an imminent panic attack. He’s breathing long and slow, his flesh hand has one of Steve’s in a death grip. The metal arm is making whirring noises. “Sorry,” Barnes mutters. “It does that.”

“Do you know why?” Carter asks, and she can’t keep the curiosity out of her voice.

Barnes frowns. “I think…” He shakes his head. “I can’t remember. Near the end of missions? It would start.” He swallows. “Stark fixed it.” He looks at Steve for reassurance. “In New York. Before you found me. But since Topanga…”

“We’ll get Tony in here when you’re finished with the monitors,” Steve says. “He’ll be able to tell you what’s going on.” The arm whirrs again, segments rearranging. It’s creepy and Sam tries not to stare.

The doctor checks machines. “This won’t take too long. We’ll have to do a cat scan as well, and take some blood.” Barnes shuts his eyes and nods. Steve stays next to him, talking to him in a low voice, every now and then. “It’s good, we’re almost done. You’ll be fine I won’t go,” and once under his breath, probably sure he couldn’t be heard. “I’m so sorry, Buck.”

Sam suddenly feels like he shouldn’t be there, and he doesn’t really need to be, not any more. One person with Steve if he’s with Barnes at all times, that was the agreement, and he figures Barnes won’t thank him for watching him like this, and Steve definitely already thinks he’s not needed. “You okay?” he asks, and Steve takes the time to give him a smile and a nod, and Sam is very grateful to retreat.

Outside he takes a few deep breaths, reminds himself why he’s here _he has to help Steve_ , and goes to get the strongest cup of coffee he can find in New York.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Points to people who know where Linda Carter comes from ;).


	4. Chapter 4

The fever lasts a week. He drifts in and out of consciousness. They're travelling the whole time, not that he is lucid enough to work out where, only aware of the few faces that lean over him and prod at his body, speaking in low unintelligible voices. Concerned for him. Caring for him. He feels safe even in the depths of his delirium, coddled in a way he knows obscurely that he hasn’t felt for many, many years.

The trucks are jury-rigged and break down every couple of miles — but the soldiers are efficient at fixing them. They feed him thin soup on the first day but when he throws it back up again they don't bother to give him anything but water. It's ice cold and comes back up half the time, but he gets enough that he isn't dehydrated by the time the fever finally breaks.

His Russian is dreadful. He has vague sense memories of someone —  someone important — trying to teach him, and he knows that's where the few words he does know comes from. He knows "fire" and "take cover" and "water". He also recognises a lot of their curses, enough to swear creatively after the fever has finally broken. They laugh and offer him another serve of the horrible soup. This time he keeps it down.

They name him, since he can’t remember his name or his rank or anything save the stream and the cold. _Odna Ruka_ , they say, and he knows that this means One Arm and he doesn’t care because that seems apt, now. Ruka, they call him for short, _рука_ which is funny to him, sometimes. Arm. Hand. _Fist._

Ruka is as good a name as any, he guesses.

They reach a town on the ninth day. The food has run out and the townsfolk eye them with equal parts fear and distrust. The sergeant — the others call him Gerasim —  negotiates for extra supplies and access to a radio. 

The village is in Russia - or at least the people in it all speak Russian. Ruka has very definite maps in his head, but absolutely no way of knowing how to make use of them. He doesn't know where he was when the Russians found him — doesn't know why he was at the bottom of a gorge missing a limb and had no way of knowing what roads they followed to get here. He can't read the cyrillic names written on the signs in the streets of the town. He cannot even say that it is the most lost he has ever felt in his life — because for him life began in the bottom of that gorge and attempting to remember anything before it is like plunging his remaining hand into fire and darkness.

He is supposed to be doing something. Fighting in a war. That is all that he knows.

The soldiers leave him in the town inn and go to find the radio. Gerasim says in his broken English that they will try to find his company, try to get him back to his men, and Ruka should feel more grateful for that. He can’t though. Despite how rapidly the stump of his arm is healing, he understands that if they find his unit, they will not take him back into the fight. He will be discharged and sent back to wherever he comes from — useless. Wounded. This hurts him. He should be fighting. 

He _needs_ to be fighting.

The inn is small and poor and the owner does not like having an extra man to feed, so Ruka offers what help he can, surprising all of the soldiers when he is able to get to his feet. The wound on his arm is healed for all intents, ugly scabs under the crude bandages. The fever is gone. He doesn’t feel good, and he thinks there are other injuries that have healed wrong — broken ribs, perhaps, but he can stand, and he can work with his one remaining arm. He fetches and carries for the afternoon that Gerasim is gone, able to understand the simple directions of the innkeeper, and at the end of the day, when Gerasim returns, he is sitting by the fire with vodka and soup, alternating one and the other. He feels content, despite the dull throb of pain in his arm and his ribs. Not happy. Waiting.

Gerasim nods to the innkeeper, then sits in front of Ruka, smiling under the ridiculous (but warm) Russian uniform hat.

“We contact command,” he says. “They come. To take you.”

Ruka’s heart skips a beat.

“American?” he asks.

Gerasim shakes his head. “ _Net._ Russians. Command knows.”

“Knows what?”

 _“Oni znayut , kto vy.”_ Ruka shakes his head he doesn’t understand. “They know you,” Gerasim says. 

 _Who am I?_ Ruka wants to ask, but doesn’t have the words. How would they know who he is? Unless his unit was on a mission, one that they had reported. Maybe his unit is looking for him. Maybe he isn’t a man left behind at all.

Ruka desperately searches for a way to ask. _“Kto?”_ he says. “Did they say who I am?” Gerasim shakes his head — he doesn’t understand. _“Moye imya?”_ Ruka asks desperately.

 _“Oni ne budut govorit’,”_ Gerasim says. Ruka looks at him blankly and Gerasim spreads his hands. “Secret.” He says.

He then turns to the innkeeper and has a long conversation with her. Ruka catches the word for _money_ several times and the innkeeper’s dark eyebrows go up and her face lights in a smile as he talks. She nods enthusiastically, pours Ruka more vodka and talks at him for a moment so fast that he cannot catch even one of the words, then claps him on his uninjured shoulder. Ruka turns to Gerasim, one eyebrow cocked in question.

“We leave,” Gerasim says. “You stay. Wait for _zabrat’.”_

“They’re coming here?” He frowns. That seems excessive, for one man, unless there is a unit already in the area. He is more important than he thought. He hopes they do not need him to report on his mission. After all, he cannot remember what it was, or even if it succeeded.

Gerasim nods, smiling. Ruka feels a surge of affection for this man, for the men and women in his troop. They did not have to save him. They could have left him to die at the bottom of that gorge. He shrugs. Reaches his hand out to shake the other man’s, but Gerasim bypasses that and pulls him into a hug instead and Ruka almost feels like laughing.

“Where are you going?”

Gerasim shrugs. “We fight,” he says. “Always we fight.”

Ruka snorts. “Always,” he says.


	5. Chapter 5

Sam finds Steve in what they’re beginning to call the command room of Avengers tower. It’s basically a high tech conference room, on the same level as Hill has her office. It’s where they met after they brought Barnes in — sans Steve, who wouldn’t leave his side.

He has a stark pad in front of him that’s showing him readouts, and Dr Carter is there, talking earnestly to him. 

“How’s our guy?” Sam asks, putting a coffee in front of Steve, who takes it with a grateful look. Sam hasn’t seen him eat since they’ve gotten back, makes a note to drag him back to the apartment for pizza tonight.

Steve sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “Not good,” he says. 

Carter nods at Sam. “There’s been repeat damage to his neural cortex, in varying degrees of severity. I suspect whatever happened to him after his initial injury caused the original amnesia and they…” she glanced at Steve. “They capitalised on that afterwards.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means they damaged the same area of his brain every time it started to heal,” Steve said. 

“I think it happened by chance,” Carter said. “There’s no way they would have known what areas to attack with regards to specific memories, wiping his talents would have made him useless to them.” She looks grim. “We can make conjectures about the level of Hydra’s science…”

“Howard said it was miles ahead of his in 1943,” Steve says. “But that was engineering. Weapons. Not neurosurgery.”

“They put the whole of Zola’s brain on a tape reel, Steve I think it’s safe to say they knew a bit about how they work.”

“That was thirty years _after_ they found Bucky,” Steve points out. 

“We don’t know that Hydra had him the whole time,” Sam says. Steve looks troubled at that idea. Sam would admit to being a bit troubled by it himself. 

“The brain doesn’t usually repair itself,” Carter says. “In most people this damage — it would be permanent.”

“He’s already remembering things,” Steve says, a little desperately.

“Yes. If you look here,” Carter taps at the Stark pad in front of Steve and shows areas of Barnes’ brain. “You can see the tissue regenerating. My guess is the same would happen with you, Captain, if you were injured similarly. Erskine’s serum would probably be more efficient than what Barnes has — it would take a lot less time. But the areas are key — we can see exactly where Hydra was focusing the damage, they must have known that these were the areas that needed to be wiped.”

“How did they do it?” Steve asks. “Bucky… he won’t talk about it. Not yet.”

Carter’s face turns sympathetic. “I’m really not sure how they managed to make the damage so area specific,” she says. “I can’t imagine it would have been at all pleasant. He…” she licks her lips. “He would have had to be conscious.”

Sam can see Steve’s hand clench into a fist. “Can we speed the process? Make it easier for him, somehow?”

Carter shakes her head. “Not without knowing exactly how it was done in the first place. My biggest concern is… wherever this was done, it was close to where he was when he fought you on the helicarriers and the facility would have to be permanent.”

“You mean it’s still there,” Sam says.

Steve frowns. “And it wasn’t in the files that Natasha leaked.”

Carter nodded.

Steve’s nostrils flare and he pulls out his phone, punching a number with hands that are visibly shaking. “Natasha,” he says. “I’m going to need you and Clint on this one.”

Carter leaves them alone after that, Steve, looking at the reports as though he can fix Bucky just by knowing enough. “Was he all right? With the scans?” Sam asks.

Steve makes a small motion with his shoulders. “Not really. He didn’t panic, but I could tell he hated it. At least they won’t have to do them again for a few weeks.”

“I figure they probably did a lot of stuff like that to him. It’s only natural that he’s jumpy.”

“Bucky never did like needles,” Steve says. “Mind you in our day they were like being stuck with blunt nails.” He rubs his arm, absently. “They’re much nicer now.” Steve takes a breath, then tries to sip some more of the coffee Sam brought him. It’s gone, and Steve seems surprised. 

“You need to eat something, Cap,” Sam says. “Come on, there’s a pizza joint across the road that serves an awesome pepperoni…”

“I should get back to Bucky,” Steve starts, but Sam shakes his head.

“Uh huh. Come on, put some food in your cake hole before you do anything. You’re not gonna help your buddy by passing out on him. And what happened to leading by example?”

Steve lets himself be dragged to his feet. “I’m not leading anyone right now, Sam,” he says, tiredly.

“Hell if anyone else sees it that way,” Sam says. 

The pizza place doesn’t recognise either of them — not really surprising. Steve looks like enough of a regular guy when he’s in downtime — and when he’s Captain America the suit does a lot to distract people from his face. Sam manages to get Steve to eat two pieces of pizza before the phone goes off again. Steve answers it, his shoulders slumping as he listens to whoever is on the other line. “I’ll be there in five minutes,” he says, getting to his feet. Sam tries to hold him back, but Steve is getting money out of his wallet, leaving it on the table. 

“Come _on_ Steve,” he says. 

“Bucky’s refusing to talk to the therapist,” Steve says. “He’s asking for you, Sam. Says he won’t talk to anyone else.”

Sam swallows. “Really?” It’s not uncommon for vets to reject professional help — so many times Sam has seen them insisting that they’re okay, that asking for help or medication is some sort of weakness. Sam has basic training, but he’s a group leader — a facilitator for sharing, not a psychologist, and he knows for a fact that the stuff that Barnes is likely to share with him will probably give him nightmare fuel for the rest of his life.

But he’s here to help, and if helping Barnes helps Steve, he’s willing to do that. “Okay,” he says. “But you gotta take the rest of this back to your apartment, Steve, and you’ve got to eat it.”

“Yes sir,” Steve says, smiling a little.

The smile lasts until they reach Barnes’ apartment, when Bucky won’t let Steve through the door. 

“No,” Barnes says to Steve. “Not you. Only him.” Steve looks crestfallen and Sam feels a little bit like punching Barnes in the face. It really should be a crime to make Steve Rogers sad — sadder, he amends, because if there’s one thing that Sam is beginning to realise, Steve Rogers, in all the weeks he’s known him, has never actually seemed happy. Barnes’ stern expression softens almost immediately though. Sam guesses Barnes doesn’t like the puppy eyes any more than he does. “I’m sorry Steve I just can’t. With your,” he makes a frustrated sound and waves his flesh hand, “with your face. You can come back in a while? Just. Not if I have to talk about things.”

“We need to know that you’re…”

“I’m not gonna attack Wilson,” he says. “And the cameras are on aren’t they?” _You’re going to be watching this any way,_ is the unspoken comment there, and Steve shakes his head.

“If you don’t want I won’t be the one monitoring, Bucky,” Steve says.

Barnes’ eyes slide away and he nods. “You can watch,” he says. “Just I won’t be able to do this with you in the room.”

“Barnes you need to know,” Sam says, “I’ve got basic counselling training, but I usually only lead groups,” Sam says. “I’m not qualified to — “

“You are a soldier,” Barnes says.

“Yeah. I was.”

“It’s good enough for me,” Barnes says, stepping back from the door and waving him in. Steve looks like he wants to touch — say something — do _anything_ and Barnes hesitates a moment. “I’m sorry, Steve.”

That is probably the wrong thing to say, because Steve _winces._ “Don’t be,” he says. “Don’t ever be sorry, Bucky.” He nods to Sam, and turns on his heels, _not_ heading to the monitor room and Sam almost shakes his head in frustration. Barnes gave him permission to listen in, but he isn’t going to, will probably make sure that he blacklists all those tapes. As far as Steve’s concerned, Bucky and Sam have just gotten the equivalent of the confessional seal. 

“You knew he’d do that.”

Barnes’ lips twitch a little, but his eyes are sad. “You just gotta know the right buttons, with Steve.”

They sit, Barnes on the bed, Sam in the chair by the window. Barnes is eerily still, and his gaze is steady on Sam. Sam tries to remember to be relaxed — he’s not going to help Barnes by being fidgety but it’s hard not to try to counterpoint that stillness with some sort of movement. He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. Tries to remember the positive body language they taught him from the PTSD courses.

It’s damned hard, when Barnes’ stare is like looking through a window to hell.

“Steve’s worried about you.”

A small twitch of the lips, at that. “Turn about is fair play,” he says. 

“You looked after him when you were kids, yeah? He told me you leant him money for art school.”

Barnes glances towards the sketchbook. “So fucking talented,” he murmured. “My dad shouted at me for hours about that one but he couldn’t do anything about it, it was my money.”

“You can remember all that?”

Barnes shrugs. “Early stuff is easy,” he says. “Growing up. Brooklyn. Basic. Everything up to Azzano. But,” he sucks at his cheek, tilting his head, “it’s like everything from then — it happened to someone else.”

“And after?”

Barnes shakes his head. “I know it’s there,” he taps his head. “But I don’t want it.”

“You recognised Steve.”

Barnes looks at his hands. “There are flashes. Steve never changes. But then there’s so many years where he’s not there.” The arm whirrs again and the metal hand clenches. “Shut _up,”_ he hisses at it, or at himself. Both, possibly. The arm settles and Barnes runs a hand along the join between the metal and his shoulder, flicking it with a nail, like he’s telling it to behave. He notices Sam staring, and shifts the arm away, so it’s mostly blocked by his body. Then he straightens. “Tell me about him,” he says. 

“Steve?”

Barnes nods. “I went to the exhibit at the Smithsonian. It was all bullshit.”

Sam shrugs. “Depends on your perspective.”

“No. _Fignya._ That wasn’t Steve. Steve was all elbows and getting into fights and being an idiot.”

“Tactical genius,” Sam says, smiling a little bit.

“Pfft,” Barnes says. His eyes have lit up a bit, talking about Steve, and Sam sees a way in.

“Did I tell you how we met?”

“Did he punch you in the face?”

“I still have a face, dude. Punched by that fist I wouldn’t have.”

“He wasn’t always that big,” Barnes says. “But I take your point.”

Sam tells Barnes the story — Steve lapping him at the monument, _on your left_ and Barnes doesn’t exactly laugh, but his lips turn up again and he shakes his head, eyes twinkling.

“Man he’s always been such an asshole,” he says.

“How about you two?” Sam asks. “How did _you_ meet?”

Barnes runs the flesh hand through his hair, looking into the distance. “He was getting beat up in an alley,” he says. “Steve’s mom — she was a nurse and they lived on their own and some of the other guys in the neighbourhood used to say shit about her. Stevie just. He didn’t think if anyone said the wrong thing about his ma. Went in fists blazing, no hesitation.” He shakes his head. “Idiot.”

“You helped him out?”

Barnes nods. “Beginning of a long, beautiful tradition of me pulling his dumb ass out of trouble.” He looks down. “Until I wasn’t there to do it any more.”

“You’re blaming yourself for him going into the ice.” Sam says. It’s not a question.

“It’s right there on the wall at the institute,” Barnes says. “Captain America, gave his life for freedom. ‘Cept it didn’t make any difference, did it? If he’d been awake maybe he wouldn’t have let it get this far. Maybe he would have…” Barnes stops and swallows and shakes his head. “Stupid fucking punk.”

“He blames himself for you falling,” Sam says. “And you weren’t exactly in any position to stop him.”

Barnes shakes his head. “Nah. You’re probably right. Just my job to clean up the mess he leaves afterwards, really, isn’t it?” The metal hand clenches and unclenches again and Barnes’ voice hitches. “One way or the other.”

“You should talk to him.”

Bucky gives that half shrug again. “He breaks my fucking heart. I can’t stand to be in the same room with him.”

“I think the feeling might be mutual there. Except. You know. I think he wants to be in the same room with you all the time. Dude likes having his heart broke.”

A desperate laugh then. A half smile. “You’re good for him,” Barnes says. It’s really not hard to read the subtext there. _I’m not._

“Steve knows what’s good for him and what isn’t, Barnes,” Sam says. “He’s a grown up.”

Barnes shakes his head. “He really isn’t.”

Sam takes a deep breath. “You know the therapists want you to talk about what happened. After you fell. The missions. Your arm.”

Bucky takes a deep breath. “As soon as I start telling those stories it’s going to be ugly,” he says. “I don’t think anyone is ready for that amount of ugly, Wilson.”

“Anyone, or just you?”

He clenches his jaw. “Steve doesn’t need to know, okay?”

“Someone does, Barnes.”

“Call me James,” he says. 

“Okay, James. You can call me Sam.”

He does smile, a little then, but there is a closing off in his eyes, and he looks away after a moment. “I think I’ve talked enough for today, Sam.”

Sam gets up. “Whatever you need.” He moves to the door. 

“Tell Steve he’s a punk,” Barnes says as he opens it. _Look after him for me._

Sam nods. “Sure.” 


	6. Chapter 6

The town is called Kronos. Ruka finally gets that out of the innkeeper, who rolls her eyes and makes it pretty obvious she thinks the fact he can’t read cyrillic makes him a moron — all without speaking a single word of English. He doesn’t feel too bad about the only other English speaker leaving — Gerasim has been a good friend to him, and he still can’t believe that they went to all the trouble they did to find a place for him to go, but the effort of communicating is too much, and it’s easier to lapse back into silence.

He listens, and he picks up more words, and he helps around the town during the day when the innkeeper (her name is Polina) gets sick of his moping.

It’s cold, but Polina gives him clothes from her cupboards that keep the worst of it at bay, and he doesn’t seem to feel it the way he did in the gorge. Perhaps his sense of cold has been burnt out of him by the water or perhaps they keep him working hard enough that it doesn’t reach his bones.

One arm isn’t that big of a disadvantage, here. There are people who are worse off, people who can barely walk with sickness or age or arthritis or cold. They don’t let it stop him. Ruka is relatively young, disgustingly healthy for someone who was nearly dead just a few days ago, and he can’t sit still, because when he sits still he thinks about all the things he can’t remember. So he works.

He carries driftwood for fires, and he scrubs pots for Polina, and he sweeps hearths and makes beds. He learns some of the rudimentariness of making vodka, something that he finds soothing and not just because Polina gives him a large glass every morning with his broth. 

He feels useful, so long as he doesn’t think too hard about where he _should_ be.

Gerasim said the patrol to pick him up would be a week.

When the trucks _and the tank_ roll into town he knows immediately that this is something different. They’re not American or any of the other allies, they’re well built, running smooth with a hum of power that makes him deeply uneasy. He feels like he should recognise the style, but he doesn’t, it’s sleek and metal and better put together than any of the equipment he’s seen since he was rescued.

The men who clamber out are wearing uniforms that are Russian, but they’re clean and crisp — and have obviously never seen the heat of battle. Ruka reflexively smooths his hair down with his one remaining hand, resisting the urge to salute. Polina pushes him forward, smiling. He’s grown fond of her, and her children, and the villagers, and he shouldn’t have, he realises now, looking into the eyes of the officer who assess him. This man is calculating, tall and thin and carries himself like someone used to power. He looks him up and down and smiles.

“Sergeant,” he says.

Ruka tilts his head. He recognises the rank, but it has no particular meaning to him _._ He searches his head, but comes up with nothing. Perhaps he was a sergeant, once. Now he is simply Ruka.

Polina chatters to the officer in Russian. _He doesn’t remember,_ Ruka catches. _He was very hurt._

The officer cocks an eyebrow and turns back to Ruka. His English is perfect, tinged with an accent that _isn’t_ Russian, but not one that Ruka can place. “You don’t remember your mission?” he asks.

“No sir,” he says. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t remember anything.”

There is a glint in his eye that is entirely disconcerting, but he turns his head and nods to the other men. “Sergeant you will come with us. We will ensure you continue to serve in your best capacity.”

Ruka glances back at Polina, who gives him an encouraging smile and nod. He plucks at his coat, as though to give it back to her, but she shakes her head.

 _“On umer. Ne prisoyedinit'sya k nemu,”_ she says. _“Sogret'sya, Odna Ruka.”_

She looks sad and Ruka wants to say something to make that sadness go away. Instead he squeezes her arm. She nods and smiles again, showing gaps where her teeth are missing. 

“Sir,” Ruka says, turning back to the Officer and shifting his injured shoulder. There is no more pain, but sometimes he feels the ghost of the limb he once had. “How can I serve?” 

“Come,” the officer says. “We will take you to Smolensk. You will be taken care of.”

“I need to get back to my unit,” Ruka says. He has something to do there. Someone to protect. It eats at him when he sleeps, when there are names almost formed on the tip of his tongue, a _mission._ “Do you know who they are? Where they are?”

“Your unit was killed, soldier,” the officer says. _Killed._ “You are its only survivor.”

The word sits in his stomach like lead. “What’s my name?” he asks. _If his unit is dead he needs to know his name. He needs to be the one who survived, who goes back to tell the others families of their loss._

_He needs to remember._

The officer gives him another look, like he doesn’t believe that Ruka cannot remember. Then he shakes his head. “I am sorry, Sergeant. When we are safe in Smolensk I will tell you everything you need to know. But here, we are in danger, and there are spies everywhere.”

“Spies?”

The officer nods, then turns to the other men. _“Ubit' ikh vsekh,”_ he says shortly. 

The turret on the tank aims for the inn, Polina lunges forward, crying out, and the officer calmly draws his pistol and shoots her twice through the chest. Ruka screams, reaching forward, but he is caught by two soldiers who drag him towards the trucks.

“What are you doing!”

“This town is contaminated, Sergeant. And your mission is too important.”

 _My mission._ “What is it? What is my mission?”

The tank fires a shot of blue light and the inn explodes into flames. The people are running and screaming. The soldiers are merciless, however. There is no chance that any of them will escape.

They throw him in the back of a truck. He struggles, but they strap him to the wall using metal cuffs around his chest and legs and his one remaining arm. “No. No! Stop them. Tell them to stop!”

One of the soldiers backhands him across the face, then thumps his fist on the divide between them and the driver. _“Idti.”_ The Officer leaps with delicate grace into the back of the truck a second before it lurches into motion as Ruka continues to shout. “Goddamn it you have to stop! Those people did nothing!”

“They have seen your face,” the officer says. “They will talk. They have to die.”

Ruka’s throat is choked with tears. “Why?” he breathes. “Why is it so important? _Who the hell am I?”_

The officer touches Ruka’s hair with one hand. It’s a gesture to soothe a child and it chills Ruka to the bone. “Shhh, Sergeant. All will be explained,” his lips curl in a smile. “You will do great things.”

Ruka spits at him. “You just killed a town full of innocent people. I ain’t doin’ _nothing_ for you.”

The other soldiers laugh and nudge each other in the ribs, but the officer just shakes his head and smiles. “When you understand how important you are, Sergeant, you will know why this was necessary.”

He doesn’t bother to try to stop the tears, but he can’t stand to look at the Officer’s face any longer, so he lets his head loll back onto the wall of the truck behind him, closing his eyes.

Outside, he can hear the sounds of screams and fire. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...i'm sorry? Also my Russian is worse than Bucky's at the moment and I'm very sorry. I used to have a friend who could translate for me but she had a baby recently and has been way too busy for me to bother with silly questions like how do you say "kill them all" in Russian so I've resorted to google translate for my russian needs. If it is so bad that you wince whenever you read it please tell me and I will take it out.


	7. Chapter 7

That evening Steve invites Sam up to his apartment for the rest of the pizza. Natasha and Clint are there as well, looking grim, and Stark is in Steve’s kitchen fiddling with what looks like an industrial coffee machine. There are tools set out on the bench and Steve just rolls his eyes at Sam. “It helps him relax,” he says. 

“The Captain has special needs,” Stark says. “All that super soldier serum means coffee doesn’t work so well on him, and I felt generous and wanted to make sure he had all the advantages of modern stimulants. It was supposed to be finished before he moved in but then you all dragged your pet hobo here a few weeks early and I never got the chance to install it properly.”

“He’s convinced I won’t be able to work it once it’s running,” Steve says wearily. “I used to field strip radios and break enigma codes but apparently I can’t work a coffee machine.”

“You didn’t know how to tell when the relays were in overload position Captain It Seems To Run On Some Sort Of Electricity,” Stark points out.

“Contrary to popular belief, Tony, sarcasm was not invented in 1996,” Steve says.

“I have no idea what you guys are talking about and I don’t care,” Clint says. He nods at Sam. “I’m kinda sorry you didn’t end up crashing at my place, Wilson. I can’t get the DVR to replay last weeks Dog Cops and these assholes are just waiting for an opportunity to spoil me.”

“I’m not that great with Tivo,” Sam admits. “I usually just get the DVDs.”

“Pfft,” Stark comes out of the kitchen, wiping his hands with a rag. “I’m surrounded by people from the dark ages. Literally, in one case.”

“We also had electricity, Tony.”

Stark waves a hand. 

“We found the facility,” Natasha says, she seems to be the only one who is actually focusing on the tasks they need to do. “But there’s a problem.”

“There’s always a fucking problem,” Tony says. 

“It’s in the middle of DC, under a bank, and the bank is owned by Aleksander Lukin.”

“Kronos Corp,” Stark says, making a face. “They bought out Hammertech when dearest Justin got sent to jail.”

“They also ended up with a lot of controlling interests in what’s leftover of A.I.M,” Natasha says, and Stark’s expression darkens even further. 

“Yeah, it looks like they’re pretty much following me around and picking up the remains of bad guys who didn’t like me very much,” Stark says.

“Sound business strategy,” Clint says with a straight face.

“Shut up Barton.”

Clint flips Stark the bird and Sam decides that he likes him.

“So what you’re saying is that we can’t just knock on the door and ask to be let in?” Steve says, sipping his beer.

“Not without a warrant, and if we take the time to get a warrant Lukin will know we want to get in there and if he knows we want to get in there — ” Natasha says.

“He’ll remove any evidence of the things we want to find,” Steve finishes. 

“You guys are gonna break in again, aren’t you.” Sam remembers how they got his wings out of Fort Meade. Steve had barely had to do anything except break one door, Natasha had been in and out in less than twenty minutes Sam wasn’t even sure if they’d even noticed they were missing yet. The Smithsonian had seemed harder, and only because Steve was really _really_ careful not to break stuff.

He hadn’t minded breaking stuff at Fort Meade.

“We need to do this covertly,” Natasha says, looking at Tony pointedly. “Stark Industries doesn’t need to make an appearance.”

Tony raises his hands. “I came here to have a good time,” he says. “I don’t need to feel attacked right now! And any way the suits aren’t ready.”

Natasha smiles at him with something in the vicinity of fondness. “It’d be better if it was just me and Clint, but we’ll need at least one more as a lookout.”

“I’ll do it,” Sam says.

“Better if we both do,” Steve says quickly. 

“You’re not going to like what we find,” Natasha says softly. “You might be better off staying here. Clint can be our watcher, Sam can come in with me.”

Steve takes a breath and leans back. “You think I’m going to do something stupid, Tasha?”

“I think you’re justifiably going to want to trash the place, Steve,” she says. “And I’d rather you didn’t have the temptation. There’s data there that we need.”

“She’s right,” Clint says. “Trust us to get this done, go visit your buddy, think about something else.”

“He doesn’t want me to —“

“He doesn’t want you listening to his therapy sessions, Steve,” Sam says. “I don’t think he’ll mind if you visit.” 

“I thought you didn’t want me in there with him alone.”

“I’ve rigged Jarvis to call me direct if you start cat fighting, Cap,” Tony says. His expression softens, and Sam wonders exactly how much Steve has told these people about James Buchanan Barnes, or how much they’ve bothered to research about him because they knew he was important to Steve. “Go see your boyfriend you’re moping too damned much.”

Steve is out the door pretty much before Tony has finished his sentence and Clint and Natasha give each other knowing looks. “You’re gonna owe me money on this, you know it,” Tasha says.

“Captain America is straighter than an arrow,” Clint says firmly. “You won’t convince me otherwise.”

“What, are you two taking bets on whether or not Steve is —“ Sam starts.

“Howard said they weren’t, during the war,” Tony says absently. “Steve was really into Peggy Carter.” 

“Did you ask your _dad_ whether Captain America and Bucky Barnes were _fucking_?” Clint seems outraged.

Stark shrugs. “Don’t tell me _you_ didn’t want to know, Barton.”

“I’m more interested in the fact that you asked your _dad.”_

“Howard would tell me anything if he got drunk enough. And if I actually showed interest in Captain America he was always so happy about it.” Stark’s voice cracks with bitterness and Sam decides he really doesn’t want to unpack the dynamics from _that_ family.

“You guys are weird,” Sam says. They look at each other. And they nod, shrugging. Sam rolls his eyes. “So are we breaking into a bank or what?”

***

Steve hesitates at the door because he is, right now, a coward. He’s often a coward, and he knows that despite what the papers say, and what the droning voice at the Smithsonian tried to convince him of, and what Bucky had said a billion times and more every time he tried to convince him not to try just one more time to enlist. He’s a coward because on the helicarrier he put everyone he knew at risk when there was a possibility that perhaps he wouldn’t have to face life on his own any more, he was a coward because he wouldn’t kill his best friend and today he is a coward because he is still doing it, still killing Bucky, with every word and action he wields like a knife to cut into flesh already ripped and torn beyond recognition. 

If he could, he would change everything that happened, from the day that Bucky came home with his enlistment papers, the day he met Erskine at the fair, the day he found Bucky strapped to that table in Austria. There are so many points where he could go back and make it better, stop himself from being a coward.

He can’t do that, though, because he can’t turn back time. He can’t do over all of his failures. There are so many of them and it would take too long.

“I can fucking hear you out there, Steve,” Bucky’s voice is exactly how it used to be back in their apartment in Brooklyn. 

Bucky never _let_ him be a coward. 

He lets the machine read his retina and his palm print, goes inside. He might be a coward, he’ll face it because not facing it — not seeing him again —  is unbearable. 

Bucky is sitting on the floor wearing the same sweatpants and t-shirt he was wearing in the morning, but his hair is pulled back now and it looks like he’s made an attempt to shave. He has Steve’s sketchbook in his lap and is looking at the picture of Steve’s mom. 

“You got her nose wrong,” Bucky says. 

Steve folds down next to him, looking at it and smiling a little. “No, you just saw it from a different angle to me,” he says. Sarah Rogers had been a tall woman and Steve had never caught up to her while she was alive. 

“No, see, here — “ Bucky touches it with the metal hand and the charcoal doesn’t smudge the way it would with his other. “It turned up at the bottom. Everyone always said you had your Da’s nose, hers was way nicer.”

Steve bumps his shoulder against Bucky’s. “Hey, don’t be a jerk.”

“Can’t help it. Born this way.” Bucky looks up at him and grins, but the grin doesn’t quite reach his eyes and falters a little. “Don’t look at me like that, Steve.”

He swallows. “Like what?”

Bucky ignores him and goes back to the sketchbook, flipping to the page where Steve drew Peggy. His metal hand hesitates over her face. “I know her?”

Something catches in Steve’s chest. “You don’t recognise her?”

“She looks familiar. Did we know her in Brooklyn?”

“No. She’s Peggy,” Bucky’s brows draw together. “Peggy Carter. She was with the Commandos.”

“She wasn’t in the exhibit,” Bucky said.

Steve frowns. She hadn’t been, really. Just that one video that you had to wait a few minutes to loop, in the dark room. When Steve had gone there’d been just a woman and her daughter, solemn and quiet, watching the screen as Peggy talked about how Captain America had shaped her life.

Nothing about how she’d shaped his.

“You had to look for her,” Steve said.

“Did she fight with us?”

Steve nodded. “A few times. But she was tactical, mostly. Back at HQ with Colonel Phillips and Howard Stark.”

Bucky winced at Howard’s name and Steve regretted it. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s patchy,” Bucky says. “Everything up to the fair I can remember no problems but when I try to go further I can’t…”

“You remembered that I wasn’t little any more.”

Bucky looks at him. “I can remember _you_.” Like it was a given. Steve’s heart lurches again at the tone of it. “Just nothing else.” His eyes return to the drawing. “Was she your girl?”

Steve makes a face. “We…” he stops. “There was a plan.”

Bucky’s lip twitches. “A plan?” he says. “Dames aren’t a damned battlefield, Steve. You don’t need a _plan._ ”

“You were going to help me out with it,” Steve says, smiling a little. “You had all these strategies. Flirted with her for me because I was bad at it. She saw straight through all of it, of course. Always was smarter than both of us.”

“So you…?”

Steve shakes his head. “There wasn’t enough time,” he says. “She married someone else after I went into the ice. Had a family. They’re good kids.” He snorts. “Kids. They’re in their fifties now, kids of their own.”

“I’m sorry, Steve.”

He shakes his head. “Don’t be. She had her life.”

“But you didn’t get yours,” Bucky points out. The phrasing is so similar to what Peggy had said to him that he tilts his head. 

“I guess I get to have mine now,” he says, slowly. 

Bucky hesitates, his tongue slipping out to lick his lips. It’s a habit he had when he was younger, to hide his nerves, and Steve is surprised by how much relief it gives him to see him do it again. There’s a faint blush of colour on his cheeks, still too hollow, and Steve has a sudden urge to get him to eat something. “So what is your life now, Captain?” Bucky says. “Fighting aliens? I saw the footage. I think I like your new suit better than the one you were wearing then.”

Steve chuckles. “Helping people, I suppose,” he says. “Now that SHIELD’s gone I can do it on my own terms. Hey,” he looks around the apartment. “You’re allowed out, if I go with you. Do you want to get something to eat? Sam took me to to a really great pizza place last night.”

Bucky’s face brightens for a second at that. “I don’t…”

“I’ll check in with Hill. She’ll want a security detail on us but I promise they’ll be discreet.” Bucky carefully shuts the sketchbook and hands it to Steve, who shakes his head. “It’s okay, you can keep it.” He looks at how Bucky is dressed, then gets up and goes to the cupboard. “It’s warm out, but you’re not exactly dressed for dinner.” 

Bucky puts the sketch book back on the bedside table, then shakes his head and comes to the closet, shoving Steve aside. “Uh uh. Seriously I’m not letting you dress me, Rogers, you always looked like you’d been dragged through a swamp.” Steve steps back. What Bucky isn’t mentioning was that half the clothes he ended up wearing back in Brooklyn had been Bucky’s cast offs — too big, and not quite worn enough to warrant giving them away. Steve had been handy enough with a needle and thread to make them almost fit, but until he was fitted for his uniform he’d never really had clothes that fit him. These days Natasha teases him about how all of his shirts are too small, but he genuinely has difficulty remembering that he isn’t ninety pounds any more, and the feel of tight fitting cloth is enough of a novelty that he doesn’t mind it.

Stark tells him he’s showing off.

Bucky pulls out some dark jeans and a jacket, some boots, then strips off the sweatpants and shirt unselfconsciously. Steve isn’t shocked — privacy in their apartment in Brooklyn had been practically non existent, but running his eyes over the visible ribs, the bones of Bucky’s spine, Steve is overwhelmed by an urge to break things and shout at the sky. 

The gunshot wound Bucky had given himself in Topanga is healed over already — nothing but an angry red mark. A knife wound that Steve knew he’d gotten in basic training, two weeks before he was due to ship out to Italy, spreads across his lower back. It’s the kind of wound that wouldn’t leave a scar on him, now, but back then, before Zola’s experiments Bucky didn’t have anything to help him heal quickly. He’d laughed it off, it’d gotten infected and Steve had had to wrestle him to the floor to disinfect it while Bucky cursed him.

But then there are so many others.

Steve can’t help himself, he reaches out to touch Bucky’s back where a long, jagged cut goes from his uninjured shoulder down to the centre. Bucky, who has a collared shirt in his hands, freezes and Steve pulls his hand back. “Sorry. I’m sorry I just.”

“What is it?” Bucky looks back at him. _He doesn’t know,_ Steve thinks. _He doesn’t even know that it’s there._

“You have a lot of scars that you didn’t have before, Buck.”

Bucky pulls on the shirt, swallowing. “I guess so?” he says. 

“You don’t know where they come from,” Steve says.

“Missions,” Bucky says shortly. “Missions that I don’t remember.”

 _Missions where he killed people._ “I’m sorry.”

Bucky doesn’t want to look at him. “You didn’t send me on them,” he says.

“I should have gone back for you.”

Bucky turns around, anger making his face red. “Stop it,” he says, prodding Steve in the chest with his metal finger. “Just…” the metal hand spreads and rests against Steve’s heart. Steve can’t stop himself from leaning forward, as though he can give Bucky everything he’s feeling, make everything better but Bucky’s voice is a hiss of pain and anger and the metal fingers curl in his shirt, sharp against skin and he doesn’t know what hurts worse, the sound of his voice or the look his face or the knowledge that _he could have done something and didn’t_ “… _stop.”_

“I’m sorr —“

Bucky shouts and shoves him back with enough strength to flatten anyone who isn’t Steve Rogers, Captain Fucking America. “ _Stop it, Steve.”_

Steve takes a deep breath, catching his balance. Bucky’s hands are clenching and unclenching and he’s standing there with his shirt half buttoned and no pants and Steve is almost certain he’s trying to stop himself from killing Steve where he stands. It’s very hard not to shape the words again ( _I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry)_ so instead he shakes his head. 

“Put your pants on Buck,” he says, pretending that his voice is steady. “Let’s eat.” 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for a great deal of body horror/medical torture in this chapter. I'm sorry.

Ruka doesn’t talk for the journey. He doesn’t move, tries to refuse to eat, but they force his head back and shovel food down his throat and it’s eat or choke, and maybe he should choke but he hangs on to the hope that when they finally release him from the clamps he’ll be able to kill a few of them before they finish him off.

The soldiers are familiar — like soldiers anywhere. Following orders to kill innocents. 

Ruka’s mouth tastes like metal and ashes and he feels constantly like throwing up.

The journey to Smolensk takes five days.

It’s been three weeks since Ruka woke in the gorge. Whatever his mission was, if it was time sensitive it’s failed. His unit is dead, according to the Officer (whose name is Strucker, he discovers, and whom he thinks is not an officer at all, despite that he continues to wear the uniform) but he is still important enough to them to murder an entire town, important enough despite his missing arm and missing mind. The need to know who he is burns in him worse than thirst or hunger or the desire for revenge. If he could just understand why they think he is important perhaps he could use it against them.

Strucker talks at him a lot, in a mixture of English and Russian. Ruka discovers that he is picking up more Russian all the time, partially because of Strucker’s habit of translating most of what he says. He likes the sound of his own voice, Ruka thinks. He talks about the war as though it has happened to someone else, he says they have failed in their mission, he says that the allies will lose if they do not do what is necessary and Ruka thinks they deserve to, if what is necessary is what happened in Kronos. He remembers the screams of the children and the look on Polina’s face ( _resigned, accepting)_ when Strucker shot her through the chest.

He is a bully and Ruka dreams of ways to kill him.

In Smolensk they do not take any chances. The cuffs around his legs detach from the truck wall but not from each other, and he is carried to a room that stinks of disinfectant. Ruka shudders as they strap him to a table and shoot him full of drugs. The drugs dull all sensation but do not knock him out, and the men in white coats surrounding him discuss that at length in Russian before he hears the sound of an electric saw.

He is paralysed, and the drugs made it impossible to vocalise his pain, but he is conscious and he can feel as the saw cuts into his flesh. If he could scream again he would — because he thought his body had been violated enough when he woke in that gorge — because his arm had been amputated just above the elbow by something _he cannot remember how and he will not try_ but they are cutting it again, digging into flesh that has healed but is not whole with a saw that screams in his head the way he wishes he could scream in reality — because he has been here before, strapped to a cot and made to feel pain for no discernible reason either than he was _there_ and they _wanted something_ — because the memories are floating just outside his reach and if they would just stop if the pain would stop _ohgodpleasemakeitstopmakeitstop_ he could remember who he had to protect — 

In the depths of his pain he hears a voice, and he doesn’t know if it’s real or if he is finally remembering. “Sergeant Barnes,” the voice says. “The procedure is already started.” The saw reaches bone and he manages to make a sound, but it is little more than a croak. _Sergeant Barnes._

Ruka tries to find the source of the voice, but the lights on his face are too bright and he cannot see.

Time passes. They work on his arm. They feed him. They work on his arm again. At some point he loses consciousness and wakes up to find metal snaking into his chest at the shoulder. Scientists or doctors (torturers) monitor readouts as he struggles against restraints. There are no more drugs and he can feel every inch of the metal invading his body. The arm is no longer amputated at the elbow — he has no flesh of his own past his collarbone on the left side. He cannot even remember when they cut off the rest of it. In its place there are metal cables that look like the tentacles of an octopus, wires leading into them, wires leading out from his chest, wires tightened around parts of his insides and the column of his spine and his heart and his soul and the very depths of his mind.

They speak in Russian, they ask him to move his arm and he shouts back at them that he has no arm, but as he shouts the metal tentacles flex and writhe and he realises with horror that he is making them do it — he is some sort of monster, half machine and half animal and there _is nothing human left at all_.

They smile, and cheer and two of them shake hands. He hears the Russian word for _success._ He hears the Russian words for _we have done it._ He tries to make the tentacles rip out his own heart but they have thought of this and they will not reach.

He screams until they sedate him again.


	9. Chapter 9

They don't go to the pizza place because it turns out they did recognise Steve the last time he was there and there are paparazzi hanging around out front. The last thing Steve wants is to let Bucky get photographed out with him and their faces to be plastered on the front page. His arm is covered and without the mask there’s very little to link Bucky to the man who killed so many people in DC recently, but enough ex-SHIELD agents would be smart enough to link two and two.

Hill's security detail, a truly frightening looking woman who says her name is Barbara Morse, directs them to a backstreet Indian restaurant instead and Steve (who has spent a lot of time since he's woken up trying to catch up on all the food he missed) orders for both of them, remembering how much Bucky had loved spicy food in Italy when they'd managed to get more than army rations.

Bucky is highly suspicious of everything that isn't hot dog shaped, but by half way through the meal he's sopping up sauce with naan bread and chugging down lassi like he was born to eat.

Steve can't stop the swell of happiness he gets from seeing Bucky eat with obvious enjoyment rather than mechanical automation and he's so wrapped up with watching that his own plate is still full when Bucky is serving himself his third helping of lamb saag.

He looks up, his chin smeared with spinach and speaks with his mouth full. “What.”

“You like it?”

He shrugs. “It’s okay. I like the yoghurt thing.”

“Helps to combat the spiciness.”

Steve has to stop himself from leaning forward and wiping the green stuff off Bucky’s chin. Instead he points at it. “You’ve got…”

Bucky wipes it off before Steve can finish. “You gotta eat too, Steve,” he says. “There’s too much food for just me.”

Steve isn’t so sure about that, but he picks up his fork and starts. It is good, Morse knows her restaurants. 

They eat in silence for a while. Bucky never used to be one for that — he would always find ways to fill up silence, even after Azzano. But this silence isn’t exactly uncomfortable.

There are so many things that they could say, but they don’t weigh heavy in the space across the table, because if Steve is honest with himself, they have already been thought of and said and responded to. He knows Bucky too well not to know he thinks the same.

_Why do you blame yourself?_

_Because I could have done something._

_You expect too much._

_But you always expect it right along with me._

There had never been a time, save when Steve was trying to enlist, that Bucky had ever said to him _“No, Steve. You can’t.”_

“No world saving happening today then?” Bucky says finally, pushing back his empty plate and sipping at his drink.

Steve looks down, away from Bucky. There is no way he needs to know what Clint and Natasha and Sam are doing right now, he doesn’t need that imagery in his head. If Natasha had thought Steve would lose control when confronted by the place where Bucky had been held (tortured, brainwashed, taken apart) he couldn’t imagine what would happen to Bucky. “I’m technically still in recuperation from DC,” Steve says. “And I don’t have an official employer any more any way. Unless Hill signed the paperwork _for_ me.”

Bucky narrows his eyes. Whatever else Bucky has lost, he hasn’t lost the ability to read Steve like a book. “What is it, Steve?” he says. “What are they doing? Why did you take me out?”

Steve doesn’t have time to make up an answer, because Morse is suddenly next to their table, her blond ponytail swinging and the light glinting off her yellow glasses.

“We’ve got trouble, Captain.”

Bucky’s eyes find his and Steve takes a breath, activating his earpiece. “What kind of trouble?”

Tony’s voice sounds dry and sarcastic in his ear. “What kind do you think, Cap?”

 

“You’re not going by yourself,” Bucky says as they get up from the table. Morse had explained with interspersed witticisms from Tony, helping herself to the last of the naan while she did so.

“Bucky you’re in no condition to go on missions you’ve only been back for four days…”

“You’re not going in with nothing but a security detail and a scientist, Steve.”

“Stark can do a bit more than just…”

“I’m a scientist too, actually,” Morse pulls a knife out of somewhere and two pistols, handing them over to Bucky silently before pulling two _more_ pistols and some sort of stave out of somewhere. “And Stark isn’t coming.” Bucky takes the weapons before Steve can say anything.

“What are you _doing_ I thought you were supposed to protect us — “

“Protect you, Captain Rogers,” Morse says. “We’re the only field agents Stark and Hill have right now, recruitment is a little behind and some of our people are still caught up in congress’s pretty little show investigation of SHIELD’s litany of failures.”

Bucky checks the pistols and sheathes the knife in his back pocket, movements precise and face blank. Morse has paid the bill and the waiters are standing around watching them anxiously. Steve steers them outside — the last thing they need after such a nice meal is to have the rest of their patrons scared away by heavily armed Avengers. 

Steve doesn’t like this at all.

“There’s a car outside. I’ll drive us to the tower. Hill’s managed to clear a jet for us.”

“What we’re going to fly?”

“It’s that or drive for four hours and that’s four hours Natasha and Clint are in custody.”

“You used to work with them?”

“I was SHIELD.”

“Bucky can’t go there, Agent Morse.”

“Why not?” Bucky says. “Do you think I’m going to try to kill you again Steve?”

Morse presses what looks like another gun at Steve, who takes it, confused. “What’s this?”

“Tranquilliser,” Morse says. “I have one too. It’s strong enough to take him down,” she jerks her head at Bucky, “if it comes to that, but we really don’t have a lot of options. DC Police will try to stop us, Clint and Natasha and Sam are breaking into a building without a warrant, we’ve got absolutely no jurisdiction here.”

Steve is horrified, but Bucky nods. “Good. Don’t hesitate. I’ll try to warn you if the programming takes over but I’m more likely to just turn on you.”

“Bucky…”

“Steve your friends are in trouble and I can help, don’t be an asshole, let’s go save them.”

Steve fixes Morse with a glare that she doesn’t even wince away from. “We’re going to have words after this,” he says.

Her lips twitch in a small smile. “Oh, I’m certain of it.”

They get into the car, Morse driving, Bucky in the passenger seat and Steve behind. In the jet, Steve finds his shield, but no uniform. He wonders if Stark is still smarting about him refusing to wear it back in Topanga. 

Barbara, it turns out, can fly the jet, and they’re in DC in under an hour. 

The bank is on a relatively busy corner in DC, and from the outside there is no sign of a problem. Morse parks the plain black van about a block away and directs Bucky to pull a manhole cover off the ground, which he does with the metal arm as easily as Steve had opened the passenger side van door. Morse drops lightly into the sewers.

“Barton and Romanoff went in through the front door,” she explains to them as they follow. “Sound strategy, if Hydra hadn’t been expecting them.”

“Hydra?” Bucky says. 

This is spiralling out of control. _“God,_ Morse, we can’t bring Bucky in here!”

She looks back at him. “We have to.”

Steve grabs her arm and swings her around. “No _we don’t.”_

Morse glares at him. “So what do you suggest we do, Captain? Let Hydra take your friends? Because I can guarantee you they’re not going to set them loose with a verbal warning for this. We need the data. We haven’t got the resources of SHIELD any more. Stark doesn’t have a working suit and your friend needs the information here to help him recover.”

“Steve what _is_ this place?”

Steve looks at Bucky, torn. “It’s where they held you,” he says. “Where they… where they conditioned you.”

Bucky’s expression goes flat. 

“There’s data here, Barnes,” Morse says. “It’ll help your recovery. Give you back your memories. We can’t afford to lose that data.”

Bucky doesn’t speak, just stalks off. 

“This is idiotic,” Steve says, following after him. “I’m going to nail Hill to the wall for this.”

“I think she’ll be expecting it,” Morse says, following. She has some sort of tracker that beeps as they move. “Tasha has a locator,” she explains. “It’s how we knew they were in trouble in the first place.”

“Hydra couldn’t detect it?” Steve asks.

Morse shakes her head. “Hydra might have used to be top of the line in technology but we have a pet Stark now.”

“I heard that, Barbara,” Tony’s voice comes through Steve’s earpiece.

They break through underneath the floor of the room they’re keeping Clint and Natasha, with the help of a mouse hole cutter. Bucky looks at it curiously before Morse uses it, no trace of recognition in his face and Steve really does begin to wonder if he’ll ever recover the memories of being the Soldier. It would be a small price for him to pay, Steve thinks, if he lost everything after Azzano. 

He hates himself for having that thought.

Tasha is chained to a chair and Clint is sitting in the corner of the room. When Steve lightly leaps up Tasha snorts and Clint grins — a grin that falters when he sees Bucky climb up behind him, and disappears entirely when Morse follows.

“Birdie?” he says.

“Clint. We need to get moving.”

Clint holds out his hands to her, which are cuffed together. She makes short work of them with the mouse hole cutter while Bucky breaks the chains that are wrapped around Natasha with the metal arm. She looks at him. “They gave you guns?”

His grin is lopsided and almost entirely _Bucky_ and it makes Steve’s heart hurt. “Steve’s got a tranquilliser in case I don’t play nice.”

Tasha shakes her head. “I’ve got stings that’ll hurt more, kid.”

“How do we get out of here?” Clint asks. The door is steel and reinforced and Steve remembers that Clint wasn’t with them when they broke into Fort Meade.

“Clint you’re about to witness a thing of beauty,” Natasha says, leaning back and folding her arms. 

Steve lands a perfect kick on the steel door which dents it, another two and it flies off the hinges. He doesn’t have his shield, but he’s angry enough to do it with sheer adrenalin. Bucky chuckles. “Easy Steve.”

“You should stay here and wait,” Steve says to him. Bucky just shakes his head and Steve makes a long and patient list of everything he’s going to say to Maria Hill once they get out of here. “Where’s Sam?”

“They took him to interrogation,” Clint says shortly. “Figured he’d be the easiest to crack. I’m sorry Steve.”

Steve thought he’d been angry before that.

“Come on,” he says.


	10. Chapter 10

They are trying to get him to wake up. He doesn’t want to. He’s warm, and he feels safe, and there is a distinct lack of pain for the first time that he can remember. But there is a bright light shining in his eyes and movement around him, and as he swims upwards towards consciousness he can feel twinges of something in his arm. His back is sore, like it’s been kicked, and his legs feel heavy. It takes him a few seconds to realise that they’re clamped down, a few more to realise that there is another clamp across his chest, and one more for the full extent of the pain to hit.

There is cold snaking into his chest. His eyes blink open and he sees men leaning over him, hears words that are in a language he barely understands. He looks down at his hands and is unsurprised to see that one is metal and one is flesh.

That’s when the rage hits.

They haven’t restrained him enough. One of the doctors leans too close and he feels a surge of triumph as he reaches up with the metal hand and clamps the fingers around the doctor’s throat. So much strength. So easy to snap that neck.

So satisfying to hear the crunch.

The other doctors scramble away as he tests the restraints. “Let me go,” he says. They look at him blankly.“ _Otpustite!”_

“Tsk, tsk, Sergeant Barnes,” Strucker comes into view again, at a safe distance. He jerks his head to the doctors, who drag the limp corpse of their associate out of the room, leaving Ruka and Strucker alone. Ruka flexes the metal arm, looking down at the restraint on his chest.

With the right leverage, he is almost certain he could break it.

“You are thinking of escape, no?” Strucker says. “Thinking of running. Back to your captain. Back to your mission.”

“I don’t know what my mission is,” Ruka says. “I’ve told you I don’t remember.”

Strucker continues to look skeptical. “We have scanned your brain, Sergeant, and while there is significant damage, I do believe you are keeping secrets from us.”

“I don’t remember!” Ruka shouts. 

Strucker tilts his head. “Maybe not. It doesn’t matter in any case. You are just as useful with no memory as you would have been with.” His lips curl in a smile. “Possibly more useful, despite what Zola thinks.”

Ruka flexes the metal arm. It doesn’t exactly hurt, but there is a dull sensation of _wrongness_ about it that sets his teeth on edge, a background buzzing that makes it difficult to concentrate and whites out thought. “Why fix me? What do you want from me? I’m not going to help you. You’re a bunch of monsters.”

“Ah but Sergeant, war makes monsters of all of us does it not? You of all people should know that.” Strucker runs a finger along the top of one of the machines attached to his arm, inspecting it for dust, then smiles, touching the finger to his lips. “I know that there is a part of you that is afraid that you have become one. We certainly have given you cause to doubt your humanity, but even before you fell, even before you were separated from your precious Captain, you had elements of the bestial about you.”

Ruka breathes deeply through his nose. “You should have killed me.”

“You do not understand, Sergeant Barnes.” That name again. It isn’t his, it strikes no chords with him. He is simply Ruka. 

“What don’t I understand?”

Strucker steps aside, and two soldiers enter. They train their weapons on him while a third injects him with something — some sort of drug that puts the dullness back into his limbs. Another touches the arm, does something which makes his entire left side go numb — they have deactivated it, he thinks, drawn the power away so it has become nothing but dead weight.

Only when the drug is making his head swim do they work on the restraints pinning him to the chair. He is helped to his feet by cold hands and lacks even the will to snarl at them. His mind feels sharp, it is simply his body that will not obey his commands, no matter how much he wishes to kill and crush.

“Come with me, Sergeant.”

Strucker walks through darkened corridors to a lavishly appointed sitting room. A fire burns in the hearth, and two high back chairs, luxurious and leather, sit in front of it, as well as a polished wood table. The table has newspapers spread across it.

Ruka thinks back on the past weeks of his life, wondering that the simple sight of a newspaper could be so incongruous to him. 

He cannot remember ever reading one, but surely they were not always so miraculous.

It is the front page of the top newspaper that draws his eye, something about it makes him squint. He wants to get a closer look but he is carefully placed in one of the chairs and the angle is wrong, he can no longer see the photograph that caught his eye.

Strucker nods to the soldiers who brought him, dismissing them, then walks to a sideboard where he pours himself a drink. Whisky, Ruka thinks, and with the thought comes a particularly vivid memory, of sitting in a bar, with a friend — a man — the taste of whiskey on his tongue and the ache _something he should have known_ in his bones. 

_You’re keeping the uniform, right?_

_You know, it’s kinda growing on me._

“We have been fighting this war for many many years, Sergeant,” Strucker says leaning one arm on the mantlepiece and sipping at his drink. “And you and I both know that it is a war of ideas, not just a war of tanks and guns.”

Ruka shuts his eyes. There is a temptation, with the drugs that are coursing through his system, to simply sleep, to let Strucker’s insanity wash over him like some sort of lullaby, but his senses won’t let him. There is danger in this room and something he needs to _do._

Something he needs to _know._

He would respond, but he cannot form words, and Strucker would know that. He just likes the sound of his own voice.

“You are to be our new fist, Sergeant Barnes,” Strucker picks up the newspaper and brings it to Ruka, swirling the liquid in his glass as he looks at Ruka, then at the paper. “The war, you see, has changed. At first we fought because we believed in freedom, whatever that is. Some of us, any way. For me? My father insisted I would do great things. Have glory. Honour.” He smirks and raises his glass, toasting an invisible patron. “The great and glorious motherland, she gives us life and nurtures us, and we must fight to defend her!” Strucker lets his glass fall again, sighing and shaking his head. “Now _Stalin_ — he allies with you and tells his soldiers they will have all of the things you Americans take for granted if they only give him their life blood, their children, their souls, not knowing that Stalin already owns all of those things, and only commands through _fear._ ” Ruka always knew Strucker was not Russian, and the amused contempt in his voice makes Ruka wonder at the Russian soldiers so willing to work with him. 

He does not have time to wonder any further. Strucker is in front of him, suddenly, gently putting the newspaper in Ruka’s lap, and Ruka’s eyes fall on the face in the front photograph. “And then you Americans, you _allies_ with your thoughts of freedom and your school boy rhetoric, you _take_ their souls from them, and Stalin can give them nothing back but ashes.”

The headline is in English — it is an American paper — god knows where Strucker has got it, out here in the middle of Russia, but it’s the face that captures him, the face that looks out from the black and white photograph with eyes that Ruka can paint in the right shade of blue, the shape of the nose and the lips, the set of the shoulders.

_Steve._

“The war is over, Sergeant Barnes,” Strucker says. “And you lost.”

Ruka can read the words, reads them over and over, unable to progress to the story underneath the headline, unable to comprehend anything other than his mission, _his mission that he has completely and utterly failed._

Captain America is Dead, he reads. 

_Captain America is dead._

“It is time for you to fight a new war, Sergeant Barnes,” Strucker continues, and his voice is gentle. _Bucky_ looks up into his eyes, _James Buchanan Barnes_ tries desperately to find the lies in them. Everything he thought he knew has tilted, his entire world has been taken from him.

Again. 

Strucker touches his flesh hand, kneels in front of him, smiling that gentle smile, soothing, as though he is talking to a child. “It is time for you to fight it _your_ way, instead of his.”

 


	11. Chapter 11

There is a room, with a chair. It is a vault. Steve wouldn’t know what one looked like outside of television shows that Nat has tried to make him enjoy since he woke up, but it reeks of money, with polished marble floors and lockboxes lining the walls that probably hold the treasures of people who have more money than Steve can even begin to conceive of. Money that is locked away, in a place where no one bothers to touch it. 

Things that are valuable, but not loved.

Sam is in the chair.

The door is off its hinges, the guards they encountered on the way incapacitated by Morse’s staff, Natasha’s kicks and Clint’s fists. Steve had choked the consciousness out of one man, while Bucky levelled another with a single blow to the back of his neck. Steve had tried very hard not to check if that man was still alive.

“Buck,” Steve says, softly.

“Get him out of there,” Bucky says, his voice flat.

There are men around the chair, men dressed like doctors, or scientists. Sam is stripped to the waist, pinned in place, devices strapped to his skin. Steve has seen too many of his friends like this.

He doesn’t hold back.

The shield takes out the first two scientists, and bounces off the wall back into his hands.

“Steve don’t smash the equipment!” Natasha shouts as she launches herself at the third scientist. There are armed guards stationed around Sam’s chair, but Bucky is moving towards them before Steve can order anyone to take them out. It’s terrifying how quickly they go down — and one of them is definitely dead.

Bucky uses the metal arm to rip the restraints off at the hinges, but Sam is not tracking well and obviously unable to walk on his own. “Get what you need, Natasha,” Steve says.

She is already busy at a station, hands flying over computer keys. Morse is at another machine, taking photographs. “Sam,” Steve says, touching him gently on the forehead. His skin is cold and clammy, his pulse elevated. “Sam can you hear me?” Sam groans and his head lolls towards Steve, eyes fluttering. 

“Riley you dumb fuck,” he mutters, words slurred, too soft for anyone else to hear. “Get the hell out of here.” Steve winces and gently gets him into a fireman’s lift, standing up and turning to find Bucky staring at the chair Sam was strapped in, head tilted, eyes narrow.

“You recognise it?”

He nods once. _“Davayte ubirat'sya otsyuda,”_ he says, and Steve is pretty sure he’s not even conscious of speaking Russian rather than English and Natasha catches Steve’s eye and the weight of Sam is making Steve feel unbalanced and unsafe and Bucky’s _right_ they need to get out of there and they need to do it now.

There are no more guards. The ones who escaped Bucky’s cold fury have been taken down by Clint’s good natured precision. Morse motions them back the way they have come, through the alarms and the corridors, to the van.

Where the press are waiting.

Steve’s first instinct is to hit them, but he can’t, not with Sam draped around his shoulders. It’s a mess. A complete and utter mess, and while the evidence that Natasha and Morse have collected will almost definitely be enough to prove that it was a justified mess (Steve isn’t way up on exactly what the legal implications of breaking in to a corporation to free people you think are being tortured, but he suspects these days that it’s not clear cut, no matter how much it should be) there’s going to be problems that he really doesn’t want to have to face right now. 

He nods to Bucky to get in the van first, Natasha covers him. Morse and Clint flank Steve and Morse shakes her head when he moves to put Sam in the truck. “Better press, and we’ll get out quicker if they think he’s wounded.”

If Sam were less well off he would dispute it, but he really will take any opportunity to get out of there as fast as possible so he sighs and turns to the cameras.

The questions start, the flashing pictures, as soon as they’re in sight. _Captain America, what’s going on, why are you raiding a bank in DC? Is this to do with Hydra? We thought the SHIELD and Hydra were done? Who are these people with you? Is that Sam Wilson? Was that Black Widow? Where are the other Avengers?_

Steve sets his jaw and hefts Sam on his shoulders, gently so that he isn’t jolted. He can feel Sam’s heartbeat, strong and steady against his neck, and he’s obviously not in any danger, but he puts on his most concerned face.

“I appreciate that you want to know the situation,” he says. “But as you can see we have wounded. I’ll arrange a press conference at Avengers Tower for tomorrow — if you have any queries in the mean time I suggest you direct them to Maria Hill.”

_Maria Hill used to be associate director of SHIELD do you trust her do you trust anyone please Captain is the city under threat should we be…_

Steve shakes his head and Morse makes a show of helping him put Sam gently in the van. He gives the press a sad salute as he climbs in behind her, and the press, while still snapping photographs, part to let the van leave.

“Fucking _hell,”_ Morse says, taking off her glasses and rubbing her eyes. “Maria is _not_ going to be pleased.”

Clint gives a small desperate laugh. “When is she ever?”

Morse starts the van. Bucky sits silently nursing one of the pistols that Morse gave him near the back, next to Clint, who Steve notices has most definitely positioned himself so that he’s between Bucky and the rest of the occupants of the van. While he appreciates that it’s probably necessary, he feels a small surge of despair at that, but most of his attention is focused on Sam, lying on the floor of the van, pillowed by supplies and bags that probably contain weapons. “Sam, can you hear me?” he says.

Sam’s eyes are shut. “I’m trying not to, man,” he says, then gives a small groan. Steve, more relieved than he can express, squeezes Sam’s shoulder. 

“I’m sorry Sam.”

“Goddamn it, Steve,” Sam obviously is having some trouble talking. “Not your fucking fault.”

Bucky gives a snort from the back of the van and Natasha gives him an unreadable look before getting down next to Sam and giving him an examination. “Bobbi’s probably got better medical training than I do,” she says. 

Morse laughs. “I’m a fucking molecular biologist, Tasha. Falcon isn’t a virus.”

Natasha grins. Sam struggles to sit up, but Steve pushes him back, gently, while Tasha checks his pulse. 

“Anything hurt?” she says.

“Every fucking thing,” Sam replies. “But I don’t think it’s permanent. They shocked me a few times. Asked a few questions. Didn’t really seem that interested in the answers.”

“No memory gaps?” Bucky says, and his voice is frighteningly flat.

Sam’s eyes slide to Steve’s and he shakes his head. “No,” he says. “They weren’t… they didn’t do that to me, Barnes.”

Bucky nods, once. _“Blagoy,”_ he says. _“YA by ubil ikh vsekh dlya vas.”_

“Bucky,” Steve says, warning. 

“What did he say?” Sam says. 

“Basically that he loves you,” Natasha says. Steve glares at her and she shrugs. “It loses a little in translation.”

“Okay that’s real nice,” Sam says. “But I’m gonna pass out now. Perhaps if you can stop the Assassin from taking advantage of me in my sleep?”

Bucky snorts. “Don’t worry Sam, I’d always make sure you were awake.” Sam laughs and pats Steve’s hand, before sighing and falling asleep.

“What the fuck was that?” Clint asks.

“Flirting,” Morse says from the front of the truck. “You were never any good at it, Clint. Not surprising you couldn’t recognise it.”

“Who was flirting with who?”

Natasha grins. “Shush, Clint,” she says. “Let’s just get home and deal with the gigantic mess we just made.”

Steve sighs and Natasha nods at him. 

_This is not going to be fun._


	12. Chapter 12

Bucky’s cell is luxurious, but it’s a cell, and there is no mistaking it. The carpets are thick and luxurious, and the bed is comfortable. They’ve even provided him with books and a turntable, music to listen to. There is, and this makes him laugh under his breath (it is either that or cry) an upright piano. He sits at that, when he is first given the room, and spreads the metal fingers on the keys, remembering lessons and songs he’d sung in the hall in Brooklyn. He plays a few bars, but the metal fingers click on the keys, a constant reminder that even if he has the same skills, he is not the same man, and he closes the lid after that and does not go near it again.

There are no windows in the steel walls. 

The arm, he discovers, responds almost exactly as his flesh arm had done. He does press ups on the floor. Uses it to smooth down the covers on the bed, put records on the turntable, turn the pages of books he does not read, all with relative ease. It makes sounds sometimes, when he flexes it, when he thinks too hard about something, but the sounds soon become background noise, something he can ignore. The numbness and occasional pain seem a small price to pay for how sophisticated a tool they have built for him.

There are no more gaps in his memory. It hurts to think about the train, and he cannot remember how he ended up in the gorge, but he knows enough about major wounds and trauma not to think that is unusual. A part of him wants to know how he lost the arm, but it’s shouted down by the much louder and bigger part that wants to pretend he never did. He’s lost a lot more than an arm. How precisely it happened is not important.

They feed him every few hours and he eats hungrily. He remembers what Steve had been like after Austria — how shocked Bucky had been at the sheer amount of food he’d been able to pack away. His own appetite had not been affected by Zola’s experimentation and wonders if, while they were attaching his new limb, they also injected him with more of whatever serum had saved him when he fell from the train. 

He considers refusing to eat. Considers attempting to take his own life. 

Steve would never forgive him.

He does allow himself to cry, when they first shut him into his cell, curled in a ball in the corner with his head pillowed on his knees. They did not let him read the entire article, but from what he had seen, Steve had died a few days after Bucky had fallen, doing some damned fool hero thing, and Bucky hadn’t been there to stop him. Bucky had been delirious and trapped in the back of a truck on his way to condemning a town full of innocents to death by his very existence. 

Bucky had been busy. Failing him. And failing him. And failing him.

He misses Steve’s face.

He cries for a long time, but when he’s done, he knows he won’t again. He eats the food they leave him and reads the books. He listens to Russian music and tries to forget his name.

He waits.

On the fifth day they bring him a visitor.

The door opens to reveal Strucker, his hand on the shoulder of a boy no more than five years old. Bucky backs up, confused. He knows the boy. He recognises him from Kronos.

“Aleks?” Polina’s youngest son rushes into the room and throws his arms around Bucky’s legs, crying uncontrollably. 

“This little one is tenacious and skilled,” Strucker says. “He hid in the woods around Kronos for three days before we found him. I was most impressed.” Strucker smiles at the boy. “We look for children like him. Always.”

Aleks is shaking and Bucky unthinkingly strokes his hand through the boy’s hair. The shaking calms somewhat. “Why’d you bring him here?” Bucky says roughly. “This ain’t no place for a child.”

“On the contrary, Sergeant,” Strucker says. “This is precisely the place for children. There are many here. Being trained. Being moulded into the weapons that you will be, to fight the war we need to fight.”

“I’m a soldier, not a weapon,” Bucky says. 

“Little Aleksander Lukin is your responsibility now, Sergeant. You will teach him English. You will teach him how to fight. You will teach him how to serve. And when he is ready you will be given another student and you will do the same for them.”

“I thought you wanted me to kill for you,” Bucky said.

“Oh you will do this also,” Strucker says, waving a hand.

“I told you I won’t,” Bucky says, “and I meant it.”

Strucker smiles. “Maybe you will do it for Aleks, yes?” Strucker says. “Without your cooperation, he will die.”

“You’re going to make me trade one life for another?”

“Many lives, Sergeant,” Strucker removes a folder from his briefcase and hands it to Bucky. “You fail to understand,” he says. “I am not asking you to betray your country. The men and women you will kill are enemies to America. They are enemies to the allies, and to Russia. You will work for us, because working for us will help your fellow American soldiers, and keep little Aleks here safe.”

“I want to go home,” Bucky says, and even as the words are out of his mouth he recognises the taste of the lie. He doesn’t want to go home. He’s failed. His sisters are better off without him, he could not present himself to his nieces and nephews like this — half machine, all monster. Unconsciously, his grip tightens on Aleks’ shoulders. He has been doing this work for years now, killing the people that Steve could not be seen to kill. And there is no plan, any longer, to go back to Brooklyn, to get married and raise kids in the house next door to Steve and Peggy, to laugh with them and swap stories and _be normal._

The folder sits in his metal hand and he looks at it for a long moment before gently disentangling Aleks’ arms from around his legs. 

 _“Sadit'sya, malyutka.”_ He says softly, using Polina’s pet name for Aleks. He looks at Bucky with big eyes but does as he’s told, sitting on the piano stool, feet swinging. Bucky flips open the folder to find faces, names, places. Details of missions. He does not recognise the names, but the bios of each target clearly state their affiliations. Some are Hydra. Others are politicians. He snaps the folder shut. “I want to do my own research,” he says. “If you give me a target, I vet it before I agree.”

“Naturally,” Strucker says. 

Bucky glances at Aleks again. “Is he supposed to stay with me?”

“You were the eldest of four siblings, Sergeant. I would have thought you were used to taking care of children.”

Bucky swallows. That was before I killed people, he wants to say. That was before I sold my soul. But Aleks is clearly terrified and Bucky has a tone of voice he used to use with Becca and he knows the Russian words came out in exactly that tone and he knows he can’t abandon Aleks to wherever he was before Strucker brought him here. He’s already accepted responsibility for the boy — had done as soon as he saw him. One survivor from a town of people who had done nothing but try to help him. It is the least he can do.

“He’ll need a place to sleep.”

“He sleeps with the other children,” Strucker says and Bucky feels sick. _Other children_. “We will come and collect him from you at the end of each day. For now, you need to begin to teach him English. The rudiments of fighting.”

“Here?”

Strucker smiles and shakes his head. “You will have facilities.”

Bucky takes a deep breath through his nose. It stinks. All of this stinks and he knows he’s missing something important, something that he should be able to see as clear as day. Steve would see it. Steve would see straight through this man and his plans and Steve would tuck Aleks under his arm and run, and what’s more he would make it out and the day would be saved. 

_Steve would never have let Kronos burn._

Bucky isn’t Steve.

Steve is dead.

“Fine,” he says. “The first sign of something fishy and I’m out of here, Strucker. Take this fucking thing off me and put me in the ground for all I care but if you’re lying to me you’ll get nothing out of me. Nothing.”

Strucker nods. “I do not need to lie to you, Sergeant Barnes,” he says. “I knew you would listen to reason.” Strucker nods at Aleks, then turns on his heel and leaves the room, the door clanging shut. 


	13. Chapter 13

Back at the Tower, Bucky calmly hands Morse the pistols and knife that she gave him before taking himself back to his room. Natasha goes with him because Steve is too busy carrying Sam (even though Sam is pretty sure they could have managed a stretcher for him by now). He doesn’t really mind. Steve is like a rock, supporting Sam’s weight like it’s nothing (which it probably isn’t, to Steve, even though Sam is no slouch).

If he was honest, he could probably walk, but he doesn’t know that Steve would even let him.

Morse moves to leave but Steve shakes his head. “Tell Maria to meet me in sickbay,” he says, and there’s no _request_ in that tone, no Steve is all official _this is the way it’s gonna be_ and Sam, if he didn’t hurt in fifty places and ache in all the others, would smile. Morse nods and spins on her heel — followed by Clint, who looks mad enough to kill someone too.

Steve carries him to the lift without talking, lays him down on one of the high tech space cots in the medical bay and Dr Carter comes and gives him something to drink from a tube that tastes like fizzy vitamin C (he’s pretty sure that’s what it is) and he shuts his eyes, smiling for a moment at the fuss before he realises that Steve is just standing there. Arms crossed across his chest. Vibrating with righteous anger or something.

“Dude you’re being creepy,” Sam says weakly.

“What?” Steve isn’t even hearing him.

“‘m’fine. You can go shout at Hill or something if you want.”

“This is my fault,” Steve says.

Sam gets the feeling that this isn’t the last time they’re going to have this conversation. “I’m tired, Steve,” he says. “And I hurt a bit and there’s this nice lady who I think is gonna give me the good shit in a minute to help with the pain and I’d kinda like to just bask in that for a while, y’know? Not have to fucking convince Captain America that I’m capable of making my own dumbass decisions.”

“I should have gone with you,” Steve says. 

“And left Barnes to be looked after by who? Stark?” Steve snorts and shakes his head. 

“It’s my fault and I’ll make it up to you, Sam. I promise.”

“It’s not,” Hill says. She stalks into the room looking official in a nifty pinstripe suit and maybe it’s the drugs that Dr Carter has just given him but Sam will be the first to admit that the look _works_ on her.

“Hey what is this, the meeting room?” Sam mutters. Steve, however, spins around to face her as soon as she’s in the room. 

“What the hell were you thinking,” Steve says. “Why didn’t you have another agent to take care of Bucky? Why did you let Morse _arm_ him, Maria?”

“It was a test,” Hill says. “We sent him with you as a test. He didn’t exactly fail.”

Sam is surprised the air between Hill and Steve doesn’t catch fire. “It was _what?”_

“You have to admit we’ve all been thinking it,” Hill continues, and her voice isn’t defensive at all. “We were going to wait a few weeks, but the initial psych assessment before Barnes started refusing his counsellors tripped a lot of warning bells, and we figured the only way we could make certain he was trustworthy was to put him in…”

“You put us all in danger to find out if he was still programmed?” Steve’s voice has gone dangerously quiet. “Natasha and Clint…”

“Natasha and Clint knew about it,” Hill says. 

 _“Sam_ is the one who got tortured,” Steve is really angry now. “This isn’t how this is supposed to go. I agreed to work with the Avengers today because I thought we learned something from Hydra. If you’re going to treat this just like Fury did, Maria, I’ll be walking right out that door.”

Hill takes a deep breath and folds her arms. “Steve you’re not rational when it comes to Barnes. Natasha and Clint knew about it. We had backup for you if things went wrong. Sam wouldn’t have been left…”

“No,” Steve says, and his voice is firm. “No that’s not good enough, Maria. You know it isn’t.”

“Steve it had to be done,” Sam says. Steve looks at him. “I’m not saying it’s a good thing, and it’s not like I volunteered to sit in the pain chair just so we can find out if trusting your buddy is gonna get us all killed, but you know as well as I do that stress testing is the only way to find out if his conditioning is gone.”

“He’s been back for a _week,”_ Steve’s voice is cracking.

“Better we find out now than later,” Hill says. “Steve, we can’t _hold_ him here. If he decides to run I don’t think we could stop him without killing him and I know you don’t want that. I know you want him back to the way he was but that’s not going to happen either. So we took the first opportunity we had to find out if we could trust him.” Maria looks at Sam over Steve’s shoulder and her face softens. “I’m really sorry Sam,” she says. Sam waves his hand. It feels funny when he does that and he has to stop himself from giggling. Doctor Carter pats his shoulder, smiling at him. He smiles back.

Steve shakes his head. “I’m not happy. I want full disclosure here. This isn’t SHIELD. We’re a team and we need to work as a team and if you’re not going to let go of the way things used to be done then you don’t have any place here. _No more compartmentalisation_.”

Maria’s arms fold and she glares at him. “Last I saw Stark was the one signing my pay checks, Steve.”

“Well he _won’t_ be signing mine any more if this is the way he wants to operate.”

“They pay you?” Sam says. 

“You should talk to Stark about that, Wilson,” Maria says but Steve won’t be swayed away from this.

“Stark doesn’t give me orders,” Steve says. “Stark will _never_ be giving me orders, not if this is the way he thinks it should be done.”

Steve turns to go and Sam would call him back if he had the energy or the inclination. He doesn’t, though. Better to let the righteous fury burn out. He figures there are enough people out there who can damp it down and if they can’t he can probably sort it out later. If he feels like it.

A gentle hand on his arm makes him realise that he’s not alone and he looks up into concerned blue eyes. “I really am sorry, Sam. We were hoping they’d focus on Natasha.” Sam takes a deep breath and smiles at her. Tries to tell her she’s fine, he’s okay with this, he signed up for it, he’s a _soldier_ and there are going to be wounds to heal and he’s probably going to need help but hey, that’s what it’s all about and if he hadn’t wanted it all to start again he would have turned away two damned fools at the door when they came looking for help.

Sam isn’t that person, and never would be. He can be proud of that.

What comes out of his mouth, though, is: “You have a _damned_ pretty nose.”

Maria Hill laughs, faint colour touching her cheeks. _“Smooth_ soldier.”

If Sam wasn’t flying so high he would be embarrassed, but instead he smiles. “Yeah, that’s me.”


	14. Chapter 14

The boy is delivered to his cell every morning at 0600, along with a breakfast, that they eat together. Aleks teaches him the words for _porridge_ and _vodka_ and _coffee._ He learns how to say _eat quickly today we have weapons training._

In return Bucky tries to teach him words that he needs in English, but it is difficult. He’s constantly reminded of Steve, before the serum, on days when he’d missed school because he was sick, and Bucky had come by the Rogers’ house on the way home. Steve would asked him _“What did I miss, Buck?”_ and Bucky and Sarah would sit there, patiently taking Steve through the work that Bucky could remember. Steve would probably forget half of it any way (he’d never been good at concentrating in school, never been able to sit still enough to answer questions, always had his hand up disputing facts) but he _wanted_ to learn.

Aleks is a dark haired, solidly built kid, just like his mother had been, but sometimes Bucky is reminded so strongly of Steve that his heart wants to break in his chest — so much potential wasted — all those years gone because Steve wanted to be a damned hero…

 _… Was_ a damned hero, he had to remind himself. The cost had been too great.

Aleks wants to learn too. Or maybe Bucky is projecting too much onto the boy. He is intelligent, and solemn, and Bucky would try harder to make him smile if he were closer to the man he had been. He isn’t. They are solemn together and the only conversation they make is clarification for the words they are rapidly teaching each other.

Bucky is incredulous when they first make it to the training room that Strucker has assigned them. It seemed he hadn’t been joking when he’d told Bucky he was to train Aleks in everything. The room is equipped with punching bags, and padded mats and the walls are lined with weapons.

Bucky is overwhelmed for a moment. Aleks, standing next to him, holding his flesh hand (Bucky refuses to touch him with the metal one, still uncertain of its actual strength) looks up at him. Trusting.

Bucky knows this is wrong and it’s killing him. But better it kill _him_ than hurt Aleks. 

He begins to train him, determined to teach him everything that he knows. 

Bucky has always been a good teacher.

It’s different, though, because Aleks is very young and the language barrier is not the only wall between them. For all that Steve and Bucky hadn’t had it easy back in Brooklyn, the kinds of hardships that Aleks has endured Bucky can’t even begin to conceive. The soldiers who brought Bucky to Kronos had been treated with equal parts distrust and fear, and Bucky had been confused at the relief shown by the townsfolk when they left him. Bits and pieces of Aleks’ story filters to him, though, in those first few days, and he realises that soldiers visiting a village in Russia (even in war time) is not something to be celebrated. He pieces together that Aleks’ father had been killed by them when Aleks was four years old. “Sometimes they killed people just because they were in the way,” Aleks says, matter of factly, and Bucky doesn’t know why the Russians were killing their own when they should have been killing the enemy, but it does not make him feel any better for the fact that he and Aleks are now working for those soldiers. 

Allies.

The third week, when he and Aleks are just starting to get into a rhythm of morning lessons and afternoon training, they tell Bucky he has to complete the first mission in his folder. Aleks is led away, calm but frightened, and Bucky is given new gear. A uniform. Weapons. He gets to choose which weapons he takes, from an array that is more sophisticated and better than any he has had access to since that first session with Howard Stark back in London. He chooses a rifle. Pistols. Knives. He remembers times he has been captured, times he has been cornered, and tries to plan for every contingency.

If he is also planning for an opportunity to escape the handlers that they assign to him, he does not let that thought float to the surface.

They fly him to an unknown location — Austria, Bucky thinks, from the landscape and the weather when they arrive, but he does not need to know, and he finds he lacks the will to even ask. He knows that his stipulation — that he does his own research — is meaningless. They can feed him whatever information they wish and he will still be as ignorant as when he began. There is a level of trust he should not be giving them but he honestly cannot see another way out. He knows if he fails the mission, Aleks will pay the price.

There is a slight tug of guilt as he looks through the sights at the elderly man in German uniform, but it is only slight. He has killed fewer people in the months since his fall than he had in all the years he was with the Commandos. There is a kind of balance, in that, he supposes as he pulls the trigger. 

The shot is perfect.

They pack up their weapons and get back on the plane to Russia. Bucky doesn’t speak to the others who sit near him, even though they joke and laugh and talk in ways that remind him of Dum Dum and Jim and Monty, for all that he can only pick up one word in ten. 

He looks at his hands, tracing patterns with the flesh hand over the metal one. Stays silent behind the mask they have given him to hide his face. Pretends that this is not him.

When Aleks comes to him, the day after he returns from the mission, the boy has a bruise on one cheek and scratches from fingernails on his throat. Bucky feels rage, white hot and pure, surge through his belly and he kneels before him. 

 _“Chto eto?”_ he demands. “Who did this?”

Aleks shakes his head, lips clamped shut and Bucky surges to his feet, grabbing the guard who brought the boy to his room and slamming him against a wall. The guard looks terrified — Bucky has used the metal arm and knows _precisely_ how much pressure he will need to snap this man’s neck, the way he killed the scientist, the way he wants to kill Strucker and anyone who ever let Aleks ( _Steve, his sisters, the people he has failed)_ come to harm. “Bring Strucker here,” he hisses at the man, then repeats it in Russian. The guard nods, babbling something back that Bucky doesn’t even bother to try to translate, and Bucky _throws_ him out the door, turning back to Aleks and kneeling again in front of the boy.

Aleks is wide eyed, but does not appear otherwise afraid. “Are you all right?” Bucky says, in English, because he is too angry to speak Russian.

Aleks nods once. 

“What happened?”

“The other boys. We fought.”

“Why?”

“Because you were gone.”

Bucky hears the door open again, and Strucker’s voice. “The other children know that Aleks is special,” Strucker says. “They know that your patronage, your training, has set him above them.”

Bucky stands up and faces Strucker, metal fist clenching. He should kill the man where he stands. 

But Strucker is not alone. There are two men flanking him, one with a rifle pointed at Bucky, the other has his trained on Aleks. Bucky feels his lips curl in a snarl. “So you let them get into fights, you put him in a position when he’s vulnerable and you think this is gonna make me _more_ inclined to help you?”

“Aleks took all of them down on his own,” Strucker says, a smile curling his lips. “One of the boys has multiple fractures. Another a severe concussion. The rest were reluctant to engage him.” Strucker smiles down at Aleks, who moves behind Bucky. “Your training is obviously most effective, Sergeant.”

“I don’t give a shit what you do to me,” Bucky says. “But you don’t put him in danger. I thought you knew that was the condition, Strucker.”

“I did not put him in danger,” Strucker says. “He is too valuable to be harmed permanently. But it is _your training_ that will protect him in those vulnerable moments. There are times when he is going to be unsupervised and there is nothing I can do to stop that. There are many children. All that are here get food and warmth that they would not have otherwise. All of them, given a choice, to stay here or leave, take the former.”

“You could…” _leave him with me._ Bucky stops. He cannot in all conscious suggest that. The boy needs people his own age. Bucky can train him and teach him, but he is a killer and he has no business playing father to this boy when _he is the reason his entire family is dead._

“You understand, Sergeant,” Strucker says, reading the despair in Bucky’s body language. “Aleks never be permanently harmed while he is here, unless you fail to fulfil your obligations.”

Aleks comes up beside Bucky and reaches for his flesh hand, tiny fingers curling around it and squeezing. Strucker speaks of permanent harm as though it is only ever physical. Tears prick behind Bucky’s eyes but he refuses to let them fall.

“Get out,” Bucky hisses. 

He can hear Strucker’s laughter as he walks down the corridor. 

 


	15. Chapter 15

Sam sleeps the sleep of the pleasantly drugged and wakes the next morning only slightly embarrassed that he tried to hit on a woman he knows has personally killed more men than he’s ever been friends with. He comforts himself with the fact that _she does have a pretty nose_ and also that she didn’t shoot him when he told her so. 

He’s aching in some spots, but mostly okay, really. They’d only had him in the chair for a little over an hour, their whole stay in Hydra custody had been four hours in total. Steve and his friends had got to them in good enough time and Sam could honestly say he’d had worse injuries in basic.

He shies away from thinking about it too closely though, because there are layers of _what ifs_ that make him shudder and he doesn’t want to go there and he definitely doesn’t want to think about the fact that he’s fallen in with people who make all of those what ifs actually percentage possible, hell some of them have been right through the what ifs and into the absolutely have and that thought makes him think he should go and see Barnes.

He sits up and is immediately swarmed by Dr Carter, who insists on putting him through a heap of tests before she reluctantly pronounces him able to walk on his own, which he already damned well knew. It’s kinda nice, he guesses, to be able to just go to the apartment and have a shower straight from hospital, so he does that, and gets dressed. There are boxes by his front door from his sister — more clothes and a few other essentials that he always likes to have with him, some music. He pushes them inside, has his shower, gets dressed. Looks at himself in the mirror for a few seconds before deciding that he doesn’t really need to shave for a visit to Barnes, then heads down.

Barnes is sitting in the most comfortable chair, looking out the window. It’s midday, but there are storm clouds brewing over the city and Sam knows if he stepped outside the perfectly temperature controlled tower the air would be hot and heavy. Here though, it’s fresh and cool, and the only thing the ominous clouds do is give the room a dirty yellow light that makes Barnes’ skin look even more sickly than usual.

He is dressed a little smarter than Sam remembers — tailored pants and a loose white shirt, his feet are bare and he’s sitting so damned still that Sam, for a moment, thinks he is asleep.

He spoils the illusion by talking. “Hi, Sam.”

“Hey man,” Sam says. “You doing okay?”

Barnes looks up and smiles, but the smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “Was going to ask you that.”

Sam sits on the bed, shrugging. “They didn’t have me for long,” he says. He gives Barnes a look over. “Chair was too small for me so my back hurts, is all.”

Barnes laughs — a short bark of sound that’s incredulous, like he can’t actually believe that Sam would joke about the thing that Hydra used to strip away his memory, but it does the trick, the tension across his shoulders loosens a little and he sits forward in the chair so he can see Sam better.

“Steve’s pretty pissed,” he says.

“Did he come by?”

“Yeah. Had to make sure I hadn’t reverted or anything. Told me they sent me on the mission because they wanted to test me.” Barnes doesn’t seem upset by that, is smiling wryly at it. “Sometimes he doesn’t get it, you know? Thinks everyone is as good as he is, as if that’s even humanly possible.”

‘You were just telling me yesterday how much of a jerk he is,” Sam points out.

“I’m allowed to say that,” Barnes says, and there is a mock warning in his voice. Sam can’t quite figure out why the guy is so chipper after where they’ve just been, but he figures the last thing he needs is for Sam to start asking him to soul search. 

“Where is the good Captain any way?”

“Had to go talk to the press,” Barnes says. There is a television in the room but it’s conspicuously dark. 

“You don’t want to watch?”

Barnes shakes his head. “Nah. Never could stand his press voice. Pompous ass. They never did get that it wasn’t the real him.”

Sam disagrees with that. Sam doesn’t think that anything Steve does is anything other than _real_ — doesn’t actually think the man is capable of lying for all that Natasha says he tries and is terrible at it. But Barnes seems to have a different picture in his head of Steve and Sam is still trying to work out if it’s halfway serious or based on information that the rest of them just aren’t getting.

There’s something to that, Sam knows it better than anyone, that Steve hasn’t really opened up to anyone at all since he woke up, and who could really blame him for that, when everything he’s ever known is dead and gone…

…Except for the man sitting in front of him.

“You think he’s putting on a face?” Sam says. Bucky smirks and shakes his head, then reaches over to the bedside table and picks up a remote, switching on the television. The press conference is on, right now, and the channel doesn’t even need to be changed, and Sam has a sudden suspicion that he’d interrupted Bucky watching it when he arrived.

Steve is in the new uniform Stark made for him, helmet off, hair perfectly coiffed, flanked by Stark and Maria (whose nose, Sam is relieved to note, is still pretty). The sound is down though, and Sam figures that there is something about this that Barnes doesn’t like, and it might be just the subject matter or it might be the memories it’s bringing back for him.

“He hates that reporter,” Barnes says, nodding at the way Steve is, from what Sam can see, politely listening to a question from the gallery. “Probably cataloguing ways to punch him. He’ll give a sassy non-answer to them and his best patriotic smile and they’ll probably think he gave them the best answer ever.”

“Turn it up, and I’ll take your money if you want to bet on it.”

Bucky smirks. “Sure.”

He turns up the volume and Steve has one of his most genuine smiles on — or at least, one of the smiles that Sam always _took_ to be his most genuine. “I’m aware of that, Mr Jamieson, I really am, but when it comes to matters of national security I’m not at liberty to give details, as I’m sure you’re aware the safety of the nation is more important than any interest the American people might have in my private life…” Bucky gives another short laugh.

“What did they _ask_ him?” Sam is suddenly burningly curious, because he’s been hanging around with Captain America for nearly two months now and he’s pretty sure the dude hasn’t _got_ a private life.

“That’s the answer he always gave when they wanted to know about his girlfriends,” Bucky says. “Play it back later and another ten bucks says I’m right.”

“Another ten bucks?”

“You totally owe me for the first bet.”

“I don’t remember agreeing on a price.”

Bucky turns the television off again, shrugging. “Standard bet these days, isn’t it?”

Sam had been interested in the press conference, not the least because he isn’t quite used to the kind of media attention that came from being a friend of Captain America’s, but it seems that Barnes, at least, has had his fill. “Why’d you drop round Sam Wilson?” Barnes asks.

“Mainly to see if you were all right,” Sam says. 

“Considering you were the one strapped to the chair this time, I probably should have come to visit you.”

Sam gives him a half smile. “That chair didn’t do me any harm,” he says. Bucky just looks at him. “The chair was the thing they used to hurt me, sure, but the guys who did it? They’re all in custody now.”

“Not all of them,” Barnes says, darkly.

“You remember them?”

“I don’t,” Barnes says, and the words are clipped and Sam is pretty sure he’s lying and he’s pretty sure he doesn’t want him to not. Then his shoulders slump. “I don’t remember what they did to me there, I only remember that I was there. I only remember that I _belonged there.”_ He swallows. “You didn’t.”

“You didn’t either, James,” Sam says. 

Barnes startles at the use of the name and Sam reminds himself to use it more, because he’s pretty sure the scientists who used to put him in that chair never gave him a name, even if it was written in a file somewhere. Somewhere in the tower now, Tasha, Morse and Barton were going through the data they’d taken from that room and Sam will happily go back in that chair again if it means he’ll never have to know exactly what they did to Barnes there, because an hour or two is nothing to what this man must have been through for close on seventy years.

He feels sick.

“You didn’t _choose_ it,” Barnes says, and his voice is completely dead and Sam has made a mistake there, somewhere, because he’s damned sure Barnes didn’t choose it either so why does he sound like there’s a difference between them…?

“James…”

“Sam I think you’d better go now,” Barnes says. 

“Dude…”

Bucky looks up and gives him a smile that’s half dead, but only _half_ and Sam can see that he’s struggling and although he really fucking wants this man to open up a bit and tell him stuff, he also knows that’s gonna hurt a whole lot. Maybe he’s being a coward, but he doesn’t think he’s ready for it. “I’ve got all this stuff to do Sam,” Barnes says weakly, waving the metal hand to indicate the room and Sam smiles, and Bucky smiles back and yeah, it’s fucked up, it’s so many layers of fucked up but it’s not like they haven’t got a bit of time to sort through it.

“Sure,” Sam says, standing, and Bucky relaxes again. “You gonna watch the rest of the press conference?”

“Fuck no,” Barnes says as Sam leaves. “Tell me how it ends.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW For more torture and horribleness in this chapter.

They don’t go after Aleks again. Bucky is hyper vigilant nonetheless, checking him for injuries when he comes to him after missions. Once, Aleks announces proudly that they held some sort of competition — official it seems — that he won without getting a scratch — and Bucky can’t explain to him why that makes his lips press together in a thin line, has to reassure Aleks that no, he’s not angry with him, because Aleks doesn’t understand why pitting five year olds against each other is wrong. 

He doesn’t even know if the other children are as young as Aleks is. He’s never seen them. 

Aleks stops talking about Kronos and his mother and his siblings after the third or fourth month. He is too excited about all the new things he can do, and Bucky can’t bring himself to remind the boy of them, even though he knows he should. He should remind him of his past, his family, should remind him of all the things that Bucky ripped from him, but the words choke and die on his breath. The boy starts to bloom a little, smiles and laughter occasionally gracing the room while they do their lessons. Bucky’s Russian is near perfect, now, and Aleks says he has a funny accent and laughs sometimes at the way he pronounces words.

On missions, now, Bucky can understand the soldiers around him and it hurts even more because they _are_ exactly the same as the men he remembers from the Commandos, but he is forever outside, _the American_ , and he nurses his hurt like a friend and does not try to intrude.

He kills eight more people. 

Somehow a year passes. 

Something changes about his missions. He no longer goes into war zones — he is instead flown to cities under reconstruction. He is told he is killing Hydra spies, Nazis, but sometimes he looks through the sights at men who look just like Steve, or Dum Dum, or women who remind him of Peggy Carter and Jacqueline Falsworth, and he starts to hesitate before he pulls the trigger. In the winter of 1947 he aims his rifle at a man in a pinstripe suit that he is sure he recognises from his time with the SSR. He kills him any way, because by this stage it is automatic, because if he doesn’t he will be drugged and dragged back to Russia where they will kill Aleks. Afterwards he stops, the metal arm whirring and recalibrating, making more noise than it ever has before, and has to force down the impulse to throw up before he makes his way back to the truck. 

They simply call him _“American”_ these men who take him on missions and never let him near anyone but the people he is about to kill. He doesn’t talk to them. He has a mask over his mouth, goggles over his eyes. They don’t know who he is.

He doesn’t either.

On the way away from the mission, Bucky looks out the window, something he hasn’t done before now, and he realises something he should have noticed months ago.

The war is over. The streets of London slide by and he can see people walking them without fear. The windows have lost their tape, the walls are being rebuilt. He catches glimpses of headlines that have nothing to do with battles fought, or men lost. They all speak of “reconstruction” and “healing”. 

A woman on the street laughs and hugs her husband, who is young and healthy and not in a military uniform.

Bucky has been killing people for a year now. More than. And he suddenly does not know why.

Back in Russia, back at the base, Aleks asks him what is wrong. Bucky kneels down in front of him, brushing hair away from his face. “Nothing, _malyutka,”_ he says. They do their lessons. He stops them earlier than normal and does something he has been contemplating for months pushing up the lid on the piano and laying his fingers on the keys.

He plays snippets of things. Music hall numbers, bawdy soldier’s songs that Dum Dum used to pelt out when they were all throwing-up drunk after a fight they thought they could never win. He plays the two opening bars of Star Spangled Man automatically, the lyrics of the dirty version he and Dum Dum made up on the walk back to Azzano coming to his lips but stutters to a stop and changes it to “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree” before the tears can fall.

Aleks claps his hands, delighted, and capers for a while and Bucky pretends they will do this again tomorrow, at the end of the lesson, pretends that this is not a goodbye.

Bucky has done so many terrible things in his life, but he’s almost certain what he is about to do is the worst of them.

When Strucker comes to him that evening with his next mission, Bucky puts the folder on the bed and does not open it. 

“No,” he says.

Strucker’s eyebrow lifts, he folds his arms, and he waits.

“I am done,” Bucky says, in Russian now.

“You know the price?” Strucker says, also in Russian. 

Bucky shuts his eyes and lists a thousand apologies to himself, to Steve, to the universe. 

To Aleks.

He killed him in Kronos, he tells himself. What the boy has here is not a life.

“I know the price.”

Strucker nods, then waves the two guards forward. This is where Steve would fight. Would drop the guards, search through the facility, find Aleks and get him out. He goes so far as to ready himself for attack, even though he knows he will not make it more than a few steps, but Strucker presses a buzzer in his hand and his metal arm goes dead. The sudden weight throws him off balance enough that one of the other solders has time to shoot him in the neck with a tranquilliser.

They don’t kill him.

“We had more use from you than we thought we would, Sergeant,” Strucker says, indicating to the soldiers that he should be lead outside. “It has been a blessing. Thanks to your cooperation our scientists have had time to perfect the procedure.” They prop him between them, his feet dragging on the floor. “Many believed you would come to your senses before now, but as it is, we have actually been delaying this step. And I am most pleased that the damage is likely to be minimal.”

Bucky remembers this drug. It’s the one they gave him when they worked on his arm. Strucker’s words cut like knives into him, though and he feels tears leak out as they drag him through corridors. He should have realised before now. He wasn’t good enough. Too stupid, too weak. Even Strucker had thought he was a better man.

He has failed so many times now that he cannot keep track.

They drag him to the room where they worked on his arm, but it is more crowded. He hadn’t paid much attention to the machines surrounding him when they’d been cutting off what remained of his arm, but the chair has been modified. There are clamps there now to hold down the metal arm, a strange helmet, more monitors spewing out ticker tape readings that mean nothing to him. 

And Zola is there.

Bucky almost gets enough traction to lunge. _You goddamn son of a bitch I’m gonna kill you_ but the words don’t come and he can’t even make a sound. Strucker laughs.

“Sergeant Barnes,” Zola says, genuine pleasure and affection suffusing his features. Bucky can remember every line in that face and the sound of his voice is enough to set his nerves twitching with the ghosts of past pain. 

“Doctor Zola,” Strucker says. “I will leave him in your capable hands.” 

Strucker leaves. Bucky does not care. Strucker is nothing. 

The soldiers strap him into the chair, and Zola leans over him. “You passed your tests admirably, Sergeant,” he says _._ “But we always knew there would be a time when your memory would be a burden to you.” He fastens the restraints lovingly, brushing hair out of Bucky’s eyes. “If it is any consolation to you, we will not kill the Lukin child. He shows promise, and a certain ruthlessness, and your training has been exemplary. Perhaps when he is old enough, he will join you on your missions. Not that you will recognise him.”

A scientist pries open his mouth and inserts a mouthguard and Bucky is afraid, then, so very afraid, because they’re not going to kill him, and they’re not going to kill Aleks, and he knows now that he was a fool to think that death was the worst they could do to either of them. 

“You are to be the new fist of Hydra,” Zola says. “You will do great, great things.” There is a buzz of electricity, and Bucky bites down on the mouthguard instinctively as the first flicks of it curl and jump near his arm. “It is only a shame that you will not remember any of it.”


	17. Chapter 17

Steve really hates press conferences. Well. That’s not strictly true. He hates what they represent more than anything — the fact that he has to be the face of his job as well as do his job. He understands — he really does — that the press fulfils a purpose, but after the meat of the questions were done, after he’d dealt with the enquiries about whether Kronos Corp was actually a front for Hydra (as far as they were aware, it wasn’t) whether the Avengers were reassembling to combat some sort of renewed alien threat (they weren’t) and whether the attack on the bank in DC was legal (they were still working that one out, although Maria had taken over at that point and made it clear that they had lawyers talking to lawyers in the hope that it could be settled out of court should Kronos wish to sue) the other questions started.

Speculation about whether he is dating Black Widow he can handle, speculation on whether he is dating Tony Stark is easily dismissed “I do believe Pepper Potts would have some harsh words to say to both of us, in that case, ma’am,” but when the questions turn to his other companions he starts trying to wrap things up.

“Press on site are reporting that you went into the building with two unknown agents, Captain, can you give us some information on them?”

 _Bucky._ “I’m sure you’re aware that Maria Hill and Tony Stark have been working on a new agency to help fill the gaps created by the dismantling of SHIELD,” Steve says. “Naturally Agents Romanoff, Barton and I can’t do that on our own. There are going to be new additions to the team, but I’ll thank you if you’ll let them speak for themselves, when the time comes.”

Maria steps up and Steve gratefully announces that questions are over. In the back room, Tony is waiting with a tall, dark haired woman, who is talking to him earnestly. There’s something familiar about her that Steve can’t quite place, until she looks up at him and gives him a smile that he hadn’t really known he’d been missing.

“Captain Rogers?” she looks a little breathless. “I’m Jennifer Walters! It’s a real honour to meet you you know I used to watch your show when I was a kid and Bruce keeps talking about you and…” she has one hand out that Steve takes, a little overwhelmed but charmed at the same time, looking at Tony for some sort of explanation.

“Jennifer’s legal,” Tony says. “Uh, I mean. She’s our lawyer, Steve.”

“Bruce?” Steve says, turning back to Walters, one eyebrow raised. 

“He’s my cousin!” Walters says. “Not the reason I applied for the job of course, especially given he’s not around at the moment…”

“Holed up on level 62 in R&D,” Tony says. “Happy as a clam right now. With reinforced floors in case his samples get mixed up and he has a green moment.” Jennifer raises an eyebrow at Tony who shrugs. “Hey I get shirty when Dum E messes up my wrenches, I’m sure there’s something that annoys him when it comes to his work. Any way he arrived yesterday and I’m pretty sure he’d love to see you.”

Walters gets a look in her eyes that Steve is very familiar with when people talk to Tony and her smile goes back to bright, personable efficiency. “ _Any_ way, I’ve dealt with some of SHIELD’s legal matters before and Maria thought I might be able to help out in a more official capacity at Avengers Tower now that you’re all… being… official and stuff.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms Walters,” Steve says. She grins again, the faint hint of a blush on her cheeks. “I’m assuming you’re dealing with the Kronos situation.”

Jennifer nods. “There’s a lot of detail and back and forth that I don’t really want to bore you with, but the upshot of it is that Lukin wants nothing to do with this. He’s calling the Hydra facility under that bank something his tenants put there without his knowledge. As long as he keeps that up we can’t really touch him, unless you’ve found something there that actually links what was going on down there with Kronos Corp?”

Steve shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Ms Walters, I haven’t had a chance to look at the evidence as yet.”

“Barton and Morse are dealing with it,” Hill says. “Speaking of which, they wanted to speak to you, Steve.”

“Well when you find something that links Lukin to Hydra I have an office on level 24 — I do have an office now, right Stark?”

“You have the _best_ office, Jennifer.”

“Damn right,” she says, smiling. “And my email’s on the card.” She hands Steve one, and he tucks it into a pocket he has in his suit specifically for that purpose. People love handing him cards for some reason.

 _“When_ we find something that links Lukin to Hydra?” Steve says.

Walters’ eyes narrow. “It’ll happen. I guarantee it.”

“You’ve had dealings with him before?”

“Let’s just say his name has crossed my desk a few times in the past few years and when Maria told me where you guys were last night and for what it wasn’t exactly a shock.”

“Well it’s a pleasure to have you on board Ms Walters.”

She gives him an absolutely brilliant, bright smile that Steve can’t help returning and clicks away on professional heels. Steve turns to Tony. “I didn’t know Bruce had a cousin.”

“We’re buddies,” Tony says. “She’s tried to sue me a few times. Or you know, not her personally, but people she represents.”

“And Bruce is here?”

“Figured we might need his help with the Barnes situation,” Tony says. “He’s no counsellor but he’s got a better understanding of your serum than I do, or Morse for that matter. That woman’s nuts by the way, don’t let her get ahold of any blood samples from you I swear she’d inject them into herself at a moment’s notice.”

“I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

“Go see her. I’ve got a project to work on right now and your Buddy is sapping all of my workshop time.”

Clint and Morse (“Call me Bobbi,” she’d said just before the press conference) are crowded around a bank of monitors in one of the many rooms Steve hadn’t managed to visit yet on what they were dubbing the “Avengers” floor. This looked a little like Tony’s lab and a little like the operations room at SHIELD headquarters, familiar enough that Steve doesn’t feel out of place.

“I don’t know what you’re even _doing_ here, Sport,” Bobbi is saying. 

“I learned a few things from Tasha okay, I know how to access data now.”

“You _learned_ things from Tasha.”

“Will you give me a break here? I’m trying to help.”

“You’re always trying to help Clint and then we end up falling out of a window into a horde of aggressive genetically engineered capybaras.”

“I see you two have worked together,” Steve says. 

Morse looks up at him and smiles. Clint gives him a look that is akin to a drowning man, but waves him over. “There’s a lot of data, Steve,” he says. “Natasha was here earlier — took the stuff from before they were using computers. She said she’s got people who can go through that.”

Steve nods. “It’s not as though we’re going to be needing to look up the people who started the program,” he says, _we know who did that._ “Just the ones running it now. Any mention of Lukin?”

“Not that we’ve seen yet,” Morse says. “But nearly everyone is referred to by code name, at least in the documents. What we do have, though, is some video footage.”

“Some?”

“A lot of it,” Morse says. “I hate to ask, Cap, but someone’s going to have to go through it.” She glances at Clint who shakes his head minutely. “Ideally that someone would be Barnes.”

“He doesn’t remember this,” Steve says, heart suddenly pounding. “Watching it won’t do him…”

“It won’t do him any good at all,” Clint says firmly. 

Morse takes a deep breath. “We’ll need to match faces and names. We can go through the footage and take some stills, show them to Barnes? See if he recognises anyone. Might be faster than using the facial recognition software.”

“He…” _doesn’t remember,_ Steve wants to say again, but Morse is just looking at him with those disconcerting grey eyes of hers and he sighs. “Okay.” He wants to ask not to be the one to look at the footage, but at the same time he knows he doesn’t want anyone else seeing it. The thought of what might be on those tapes — the thought that people have to see them — it’s enough to make him sick. He holds out his hand for the drive Morse has and she hands it to him, nodding.

“Cap,” Clint says. “Don’t watch them by yourself, okay?” Steve just gives him a look and Clint’s nostrils flare, head shaking. “Fine, but we’re here after, all right? And we all want to help him, so don’t just… do that thing you do.”

“What thing?”

“You know, all the stoic… stuff.”

“Clint you make no sense at the best of times, leave the poor man alone,” Morse says. “Better still leave me alone too and maybe ask Dr Banner to come down. There’s a lot of data here that has absolutely nothing to do with arrows.”

“You used to be nicer to me, Birdie.”

“I didn’t know you as well.”

Steve takes the drive out of there, wondering where exactly he’s going to watch whatever is on it, wondering exactly what the story is between Morse and Barton, thinking that it’s probably more complicated than he wants to get into right now like everything to do with Clint Barton. For such a regular seeming guy he certainly seems to attract the strangest situations, but Steve guesses given his current circle of acquaintances he can’t really be trusted to judge normal behaviour. 

He has a laptop in his apartment that he can watch video feed on but the thought of watching it in his home — when the very weight of it in his hand makes his flesh crawl — is too much. He goes to the conference room instead, hooking it up to the screen there (Tony would be flabbergasted, he thinks to himself, that he can actually make it work but it’s actually very simple.)

They’re simple surveillance tapes. The date and time are stamped on the bottom of the screen, which flickers in a way that reminds him of damaged footage from the war. Videotape, he guesses, converted to digital for safekeeping. The first screen flickers up and the date across the bottom is June 1994 and it is still a shock for Steve, to think that 1994 is twenty years ago — twenty years ago when he was ten years old. In 1928.

1928, when he and Bucky were roaming the streets of Brooklyn and Bucky was dragging him out of fights he had no business getting into. When his ma was still alive and Bucky’s father called Steve _that scrawny mick kid who always gets you into trouble, James._

George Barnes had no idea. Or a better idea than any of them.

_I’m sorry George. You were always right about me._

He’s delayed long enough.

 


	18. Chapter 18

Sam goes for a run. Not out on the streets, not in the middle of New York summer, but there’s a gym (of course there’s a gym) and a treadmill and while he kinda misses the monument and the calm quiet of the water (and the certain asshole companion runner) it’s not so bad. It clears his head a little and tests the limits of what they did to him in the bank. There doesn’t seem to be any permanent damage, and even though he has to stop earlier than he would have liked he goes back to the apartment and showers and feels a little bit more human.

“Jarvis where’s Steve?” he asks as he comes out, towelling down.

_“Captain Rogers is in the conference room, Mr Wilson.”_

He can get used to having all his questions answered by a disembodied British guy, although part of him is a little bit worried considering Jarvis hasn’t ever responded with Siri’s “I’m sorry I didn’t get that.” Stark assures them that he’s not watching them all the time and wouldn’t know what to do with the information even if he was, but Sam has his suspicions.

He gets dressed and makes his way to the conference room. 

There’s a massive screen on one wall of the room — the sort of thing Sam would like to watch all the Alien movies on (well, the first two), but right now it’s showing a still of a room — similar to the one in DC where Sam had been kept. There are subtle differences. It’s not a bank, for one thing. The walls are bare and although Sam thinks it’s probably underground there are no other defining features.

In the chair is Barnes, held in place with metal clamps. He has injuries — a long cut down the front of his chest and what looks like a bullet wound on the other side. There is a doctor next to him, obviously tending the wounds, and two or three other guys standing around, talking to each other. One of them is smiling.

Barnes’ eyes are wide and open and staring blankly at the roof and Sam thinks they might be the most frightening thing he’s ever seen in his life.

“I’ve been watching this for three hours,” Steve’s voice is dull and thick, and Sam turns to see he’s looking out of the window, as far as possible away from the screen as he can get without being out of the room altogether. 

He looks like hell. “Yeah?” Sam says, aware that this isn’t going to go anywhere good anytime soon. “By yourself?”

Steve doesn’t show any signs of having heard him. “There are a lot of men going in and out of there,” Steve says. “Camera’s always trained on… on Bucky, but you can see them coming and going. Doing their j..jobs.” Steve puts his hand on the glass of the window, shutting his eyes and resting his head on it. His other hand is clenching and releasing, unconsciously, Sam is certain. “You know, they don’t show their faces on the screen? Not often any way. They come in and they take blood and they torture him and they don’t show their faces because they know it’s wrong and they’re ashamed, but they’re still doing it. They still did it. For years. The same men — you can tell which ones hate it the most by the set of their shoulders but the worst thing is…” he takes a shuddering breath. “The worst thing is that they stop hating it. After the third or fourth time. They stop hating what they’re doing and they start hating _him_ instead.” Sam opens his mouth to say something but what can you say to that? _People are shit, Steve, I’m sorry you never knew that. People have always been shit but sometimes it’s not their fault._ “That’s the only way they _can_ do it to him. They think he must have done something to deserve it. Some of them…” Another breath, and there are tears streaming down his face now “Some of them are men I worked with, in SHIELD, Sam. Men who were in the same room as me for briefings, men I trusted to watch my back on missions. They knew me. They knew where I came from and they knew who he was too, God, Sam, they knew he was alive they could see his face and tell who he was and _they sat in the same room with me and looked me in the eyes.”_

Sam doesn’t stop to think, he just goes to him and throws one arm over his shoulder and Steve turns his head into Sam’s shoulder and sobs.

Sam isn’t a stranger to tears and he knows how to comfort people when they’re like this. There isn’t anything he can say or do to stop them, he can just be here — be a witness — know that there are feelings that are just too much to cope with on your own. He rubs his hand in soothing circles on Steve’s back and tries to imagine what it would be like to see Riley in that chair, not the first time he’s thought of the parallels between them, no, but Riley is dead and there’s no chance of him coming back broken and changed and there’s a small part — no — a _large_ part of Sam that’s grateful for that. He hopes wherever Riley is now he doesn’t hold that against him.

It goes on for a while, the crying, but when he’s done Steve doesn’t apologise and he doesn’t look embarrassed, he just takes a deep breath and pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe up the mess.

Sam is kinda fascinated that he’s got a handkerchief, he won’t lie. Thing has checks on it and everything. 

“You gonna be okay?” he asks.

Steve gives a wet chuckle. “I doubt it,” he says, then takes a deep breath. “Thanks, though.”

“What I’m here for, man.”

Steve puts his hand on Sam’s shoulder and shakes his head, squeezing. “No it’s not.” He looks back up at the screen and makes a frustrated sound before going to the printer and taking out a series of head shots.

“Anyone we know?”

“Rumlow,” Steve says. “Shows up around 2005. Grant Ward turns up around 2012, who’s also in custody right now, apparently being interrogated,” Steve lips curl and Sam figures whoever this Grant Ward is doesn’t know how lucky for him that he’s some place other than within reach of Steve’s fists. “We’ve gotten everything we can out of both of them and neither of them know any of the science.”

“Anyone we _didn’t_ know about?”

“There are a few unfamiliar faces. And there’s also this.” Steve passes Sam three separate photos that make Sam whistle.

A man. Hale and healthy for all he’s probably in his seventies — still some dark strands in the distinguished grey hair. 

“Aleksander Lukin,” he says. There are older photos where his hair is black — date stamped 1996. He doesn’t try to hide his face from the camera, and in the third photo he’s looking at Barnes with an expression that makes Sam’s skin crawl.

“He must have known we’d find the footage,” Steve says. “I’ve put in a call to Maria, she’s going to head over there and arrest him.”

 _“That will not be necessary, Captain,”_ Jarvis says through the speakers. _“I have just received word from the local news services. Aleksander Lukin was killed in a plane crash over the Atlantic two hours ago.”_

Steve looks at Sam, eyes wide, and _cheated._ “What?”

_“Aleksander Lukin boarded his private jet this morning at 9:45 to travel to …”_

“Don’t worry Jarvis,” Steve says, snatching up the file of photos on the table and heading towards the door. “I believe you.”

Sam follows behind Steve, bewildered and not a little angry himself. Behind them, the still of Bucky, held in the chair, stays looking over the conference room, silent and accusing.


	19. Chapter 19

“He’s not dead,” Steve is in Maria’s office, and Maria is sitting behind her desk with a lot of official looking documents spread out in front of her, and Steve is reminded of Fury’s desk except that Maria has, for some obscure reason, a collection of Avengers bobble heads lined up in front of her computer screen.

There’s a Captain America, a Tony Stark (which is missing its head) and a Black Widow, but Hulk has pride of place on top of her computer monitor.

“The plane went down, Steve, and Lukin was on it, according to several independent sources who are nearly all reliable.”

“You don’t think Hydra would have had a way of getting him off that plane before it crashed, Maria? He’s not dead. He’s just running.” 

“He’s seventy years old Steve.”

“I’m ninety-five, Maria.”

She runs a hand through her hair and sighs. Sam has come with him, and Steve appreciates it, he really does, even though he’s not sure if what he needs right now is moral support or someone to punch. “We need to send someone out to the crash site,” Steve says. 

“Stark is on it,” Maria says. “He’s asking Colonel Rhodes to fly by and have a look, should be there in an hour. In the meantime you need to check in with Barnes and see if he can identify any of the other people in that room.”

Steve grinds his teeth. He will freely admit the reason he is here and not with Bucky right now is precisely because he doesn’t want to show the photos in the file to Bucky. If he closes his eyes he can see them putting the mouth guard in his mouth, hear the screams as he is wiped. 

“You’re certain Ward and Rumlow can’t give us any more information?” 

Maria raises her eyebrows. “Ward sang like a nightingale,” Maria says. “But he only had interaction with Barnes once. His Hydra wasn’t the same as Pierce’s.” She looks like she’s about to say more, but she shakes her head. “It’s dealt with. Rumlow’s contacts are all dead or in custody. There are three scientists in those pictures we don’t know and those are the ones we need to concentrate on now that Lukin is dead.”

“He’s not dead, Maria. This is way way too convenient and you know it.”

“Now that Lukin _appears_ to be dead. Go and talk to Barnes. Delaying it won’t do anyone any good.”

Steve makes a frustrated sound under his breath then spins on his heel. Sam touches his arm. “You want company for this?”

Steve gives Sam another look, then looks at Maria. He shrugs. “I’ll call you if I need you,” he says. Sam nods and Steve makes his way down to Bucky’s apartment.

Bucky is doing press ups on the floor near the bed when Steve comes in. The metal arm seems to work exactly the way a normal arm would, although it’s odd to see the muscles of his flesh arm flexing as they’re used, while the metal arm stays static, gently whirring as its segments rearrange.

“Hey buddy,” Steve says, unsure if Bucky has even heard him come in.

“Steve,” he doesn’t sound out of breath. He lifts up the metal arm and starts doing one armed push ups instead and Steve resists the urge to tell him to stop showing off — remembering that while Bucky from Brooklyn might well have done that deliberately as Steve came in, it wasn’t really his style now. And in any case, he was obviously trying to get the flesh arm back up to par with the metal one.

There is an empty tray of food near the bed and Steve has a surge of satisfaction at that — any sign that Bucky is looking after himself independently from Steve and Sam is a good sign. He feels the weight of the folder in his hand and hopes his errand here today isn’t going to set Bucky’s recovery back again.

“I looked at the tapes from the bank,” he says. There is a slight hesitation in Bucky’s movements, but it doesn’t last.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve got a few photos for you to look at.”

“I don’t remember them,” Bucky says, not looking up. 

“I know, Buck. But…”

Bucky stops and sits back, folding his legs and looking up at Steve through a curtain of dark hair. His shirt is sweat darkened and he is breathing slowly and evenly.

“Show me the damned photos,” Bucky says, holding out his hand. 

Steve gives him the folder and Bucky opens it, quickly thumbing through the pictures. He shakes his head at each scientist, but pauses at the first photo of Lukin.

He frowns for a moment, touching Lukin’s face. “Who is this?” he asks. 

“That’s Lukin,” Steve says. 

Bucky’s voice is flat. “First name?”

“Aleksander,” Steve says. “He’s the one who owned the bank building where you…”

Bucky tastes the name on his lips. “Aleksander,” he says. Steve doesn’t think he’s _ever_ seen him look like that, bewildered and uncertain — not even in Topanga. There’d been underlying certainty even in the way Bucky had denied being important to Steve, here, now, looking at a photo of Lukin, he looks _young._  

“You remember him?”

Bucky shakes his head, looking up at Steve. “I…” 

Steve’s phone rings, and he pulls it out, impatient. It’s Stark. 

“Rhodey’s back,” he says shortly. 

“That was fast.”

“Yeah, well, it turns out he didn’t have to go far, there was a message waiting for us from Aleksander Lukin.”

Steve draws in a breath through his nose. “Yes?”

“He says he had a double go on the plane because he knew it was going to be targeted by Hydra.”

Steve looks at Bucky, who is still frowning down at the photographs, now looking at the one of the younger Lukin. “Has he turned himself in?”

“No, Steve. He’s asking for asylum.” 

His fist clenches. “No,” he says. “No that’s not what he’s going to get from us, Tony.”

“Steve if he was forced to do this it makes him as much a victim as…”

 _“No,_ Tony. You haven’t seen the tapes you don’t get to tell me who is a victim here.”

He feels a hand on his arm. “Steve?” Bucky is standing there, with the photo of Lukin in his hand and his eyes are wide and he shakes his head. “Steve I know him.”

Steve looks at Bucky. “Tony I’m coming to you,” he says, hanging up and putting the phone in his pocket. He turns to Bucky, puts one hand on his arm. “We know he was there. We know who he is. It’s all right, Bucky, we’ll make sure he pays for what they did to you.”

“No!” Bucky shakes his head violently. “No, you can’t hurt him. It’s not his fault.”

Steve can see Lukin in the room so clearly if he shuts his eyes. Can see him directing the scientists, giving orders without shame. He hadn’t flinched the first time he’d walked into the room, not like the others. He’d been interested. Dispassionate.

“Bucky he was in _charge_ of what they did to you,” Steve hisses.

“He’s _Aleks,”_ Bucky says, as though this makes sense, as though it’s the only thing that matters. “It’s not his fault. It’s _mine.”_

Steve doesn’t know what to say to that. He’s been to enough of Sam’s VA meetings, done enough reading, been _counselled_ enough to know that blame assignation is one of those things that gets twisted beyond reason — _survivor’s guilt_ he’s been branded with, _post traumatic stress disorder._ He knows the phrase _stockholm syndrome_ although how that can even begin to cover what happened to Bucky he doesn’t know.

But Bucky didn’t know anyone, didn’t remember anything until he saw Steve in DC and now he is insisting that he knows Lukin and he _doesn’t_ look afraid. “Steve I need to come with you,” he says. “I need to see him.”

“Bucky I don’t think it’s a good idea…”

“Steve, _I’m asking you._ I want this. Please.”

How can Steve say no?


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay on this chapter I had a busy week.

James Buchanan Barnes is hypersensitive to touch. It seems to get worse when Steve is in the room, and he is torn constantly between the urge to seek more of it and recoil. Steve is always hesitant, these days, about touching him at all, although James Buchanan Barnes can feel the need he has to do it. They touched a lot, when they were young in Brooklyn. In those days touch was a way of affirming life. Steve had always been fragile, but what most people didn’t understand was that James Buchanan Barnes had been too. They lived dangerous lives, even before the war, and friendships and love could be fleeting.

The Winter Soldier had touched only to kill.

James Buchanan Barnes walks as close to Steve as he can without touching him as they go down to see Aleksander Lukin. He doesn’t truly understand the pull he feels to the man, the face, while familiar, has less of an impact than the name. _Aleks,_ he whispers to himself, and the image of a small child appears in his head, determined and cocky.

If he blinks the image flickers. There are stages. Aleks as a teenager. Aleks as a grown man. Aleks as an old man — like he is in the photograph. 

He cannot reconcile the images. He cannot think of them as separate people. He is Aleks. He owes Aleks a debt. He needs to repay that debt.

They have Aleks in a room with the woman — Maria. Steve will not let him into the room with Aleks, and the set of Steve’s jaw, the tension in the lines of his body, all speak of rage. This makes Bucky feel uprooted. For some reason Steve being angry at Aleks frightens him. 

The two people in the room, which he sees through double sided glass, are speaking quietly. Maria is shaking her head, denying Aleks something. Aleks is asking quiet, insistent questions. James can read lips, a skill he was taught at some point although he cannot remember when or how, and he can make out what they are saying.

_I want to see him._

_You are in no position to make demands Mr Lukin._

_I’ve told you, I need asylum. Hydra had me in their control for more than seventy years…_

_You expect me to believe that nothing rubbed off on you in all that time, Mr Lukin?_

_They murdered my family._

“No,” James says. Steve looks at him, brows drawing together. “Hydra didn’t murder his family. I did.”

 

James blinks. Steve has steered him out of the room where he could see Aleks and they’re sitting in another one — a surveillance station. There are cameras on the room that Maria and Lukin are in, but Steve has positioned himself between him and the screen that displays it. He hesitates, then pulls a chair in front of James and sits on it, leaning forward. James thinks he’s going to put his hands on the arms of James’ chair, trap him, but Steve isn’t like that, Steve will always give _him_ a way out.

Perhaps that’s what this is.

“Talk to me, Buck,” he says.

“Hydra captured me in Kronos,” James says. 

“That’s where Lukin was born,” Steve says. James nods. He doesn’t need to go into details, Steve is smart enough to know what would have happened. But he shakes his head. “It isn’t your fault,” he says.

The metal arm jerks and rearranges, and it takes him a long time to manage to get it under control. When he breathes in his breath shudders and jerks in much the same way as the arm did and he is surprised to feel wetness in his eyes.

“Hey,” Steve leans forward, touches his flesh arm, touches the metal one too. Soothing strokes down both of them as James shakes with something he can’t even name. It’s the feeling he gets when he fails a mission. The feeling he gets when he has been without a wipe for too long and he can feel the memories crowding at him, but that’s not _right_ because the important things — he remembers the important things — he remembers Steve and Brooklyn and _being a good person._ He can’t afford to remember anything else.

“He’s important,” he says. “I can’t remember and I don’t want to remember and he’s _important_ Steve.”

“You…” Steve stops. “Do you think…” he stops again.

“What. _What_ Steve?”

Steve doesn’t want to say what he’s about to say and James shuts his eyes, trying to stop the shaking, trying to understand.

“You’d need to see the tapes,” he says. “To understand who this person is. Yes, he’s important, but he isn’t what you think, all right? He isn’t. He _hurt_ you.”

It’s so simple, for Steve. It always has been. Lukin hurt him. Lukin hurt James Buchanan Barnes and that makes Steve Rogers angry and it makes Steve Rogers want to fix it somehow.

James opens his eyes again. “Show them to me.”

“The tapes?”

James nods. “Yes. I need to see them. See him.”

Steve’s face crumples — the closest he’s come to actual tears since they’ve been reunited. James remembers that look, remembers how much Steve hated it when they were kids, that feeling of helplessness. He waits for the squaring of the shoulders. Waits for the deep breath and the uplifted head and the determined gaze and the stubborn as all hell _I’ll do it anyway_ that always comes after that expression.

This time it doesn’t come. “You can’t watch them, Bucky,” he says. “I’m not going to do that to you.”

James doesn’t trust anyone, not even Steve right now, he doesn’t know if he’s ever trusted Steve to do anything other than get himself into trouble but Steve is the one in front of him now but if there’s evidence, if there’s something that will tell him why Aleks is so important he needs to see it. “Steve,” he tries the needling voice, he remembers he has it in a toolbox of _things that might convince Steve to back down and live again_ he’s never used it for selfish reasons before but then…

He’s not Bucky any more either. “Steve they’re tapes of _me,”_ he says. “Whatever is on them, whatever Aleks does that’s so terrible — he did it to _me._ You don’t get to tell me I’m not allowed to watch them.”

Steve surges to his feet, nostrils flaring. _“Goddammit_ Bucky.” He turns away, his palms pressing into his eyes, shoulders shaking. He stands that way for a long moment before taking a shuddery breath. “Okay. Okay I need to… I need to talk to Sam. I need to make sure this isn’t the absolute worst thing I could let you do, can you… will you wait?”

“I’ll come with you,” James says, standing. “You talk to Sam _with me.”_

“You don’t trust me.”

James shakes his head. “Steve you think you’re going to protect me from getting hurt. It’s too late for that.”

Steve’s shoulders slump. “Bucky.”

He shakes his head. “I need this, Steve.”

“Fine.” He jerks his head and they leave the room, James looks back at the monitor to see that Aleks is alone now in the room — Hill has gone. His arm whirrs again and panic rises in his chest — _Aleks shouldn’t be alone like that —_ but he forces it down like bile and follows Steve to Sam’s apartment. 

James _remembers_ this. He remembers the way Steve radiates anger and hurt for everyone else in the world but the memory is wrong, because the Steve he remembers was five foot nothing and too small to contain the rage that shook him but this is more frightening because even in the body he has, with its enhancements there still isn’t enough room.

There is so much feeling in that body and James yearns towards it. He’s a vacuum. He feels nothing. Perhaps James can siphon off some of those feelings and become what he used to be.

Sam is on the couch in his very comfortable apartment when Steve and Bucky arrive, looking relaxed. There is a glass of wine (empty) on the coffee table. Evidence of a meal eaten. He is watching television, some sort of cooking show, men with knives that James only knows as convenient weapons cutting up the carcasses of animals with the kind of precision that James would normally only assign to fellow assassins or soldiers. 

Everything is entertainment these days.

Steve lays it out for Sam who doesn’t answer for a long moment, just looks at James. “You can stop watching them whenever you want,” he says finally. “We’ll both be in the room with you. If you need an out, you can go out, but  we’ll both have tranquillisers okay?”

“Wait,” Steve says. “We won’t need those surely… Sam…”

“Don’t be stupid, Steve,” James says. “I’m not _safe._ If you need to fucking drug me to stop me from killing you you’ll fucking do it, okay?”

“I’ll do it,” Sam says. “If you can’t.”

Steve shakes his head, jaws clamped tight. “You wouldn’t be fast enough,” he says.

James puts his hand on Steve’s arm. “I trust you for this, Steve,” he says. “You know that, right?”

Steve shakes his head, minutely. “I wish you didn’t.”

“Okay,” Sam says. “Let’s go.”


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for torture and discussion of torture in this chapter.

The room is mostly bare, save for the chair which will hold Ruka and the tube where he currently sleeps. Aleks hesiates. _Sleeps_ seems like the wrong word — there is nothing restful about the way it is displayed, upright, in the corner, like an ornament or a statue. An asset.

In the Red Room, while he was being trained, the man the other Hydra called The Soldier only responded if Aleks called him Ruka. If anyone else attempted it Ruka would not respond. It was something they shared — a bond like the memories of Kronos that are now faded almost to nothing for Aleks.

Less than nothing for the man in the tube.

Yet he was Ruka to Aleks still. He was his teacher and his protector and Aleks had loved him with all the fickleness of a five year old’s heart. And now Aleks is seventeen and his kill count stands at seven and as his reward he has been allowed to be present when the Soldier is brought out of cryofreeze for the first time in six years.

“Why is the boy here?” one of the doctors, a short, pudgy man with round glasses looks at Aleks as though he is a piece of meat. Aleks looks back at him, steadily, and feels a small surge of satisfaction when the other man’s gaze falters. “This is a delicate process and I will not brook interference, Baron.”

Strucker, standing beside him, puts his hand on Aleks’ shoulder. “The boy has served well,” he says. “This is his reward. Also, Doctor, you may consider this a test of your science.”

“You wish to test me again? Test him?” Zola seems enraged by this.

“Doctor, you should know by now that you will continue to be tested for as long as you live. This is our way.”

Zola snorts. “He is perfect,” he says. “There will be no problems.”

“That remains to be seen.”

Aleks has been told that the Soldier will not remember him. He has been told that Ruka would have betrayed them, betrayed the Red Room, were he not routinely wiped before missions. Aleks does not care.

He is not here for affection, or memory. He is here for information.

The unfreezing process is less complex than Aleks imagined it would be. The tube is filled with a viscous liquid, and there is a hum of machinery. Two lab assistants watch dials and monitor temperatures on either side.

“The first time we unfroze him it took a lot longer,” Strucker says, conversationally. “We did not know the full regenerative capacity of his serum. Fortunately we were able to speed up the process.”

The liquid drains through a grate in the floor and the scientists unclamp the locks on the side and the door swings open. Ruka falls to the floor, supporting his weight on both arms, dripping liquid and coughing.

His hair is shorn around his ears, messy and greasy looking, the network of scar tissue where the metal shoulder meets flesh angry and red. Even as Aleks watches, though, the red fades to white. Something to do with the temperature change, he supposes. Steam rises from Ruka’s body and there is an ugly smell — something between unwashed human and dead animal. He keeps his face still, however, and does not recoil.

When he is done coughing he looks up and straight at Aleks. Aleks does not know what he expected, but it is not this completely blank stare. There is no recognition, no familiarity. It is as though Aleks is looking at someone else who wears Ruka’s face. The scientists wipe him down with towels that are bathed in some sort of antiseptic and the smell fades. They lift him and move him to the chair.

Ruka does not struggle.

“What happens now?” Aleks asks.

“We program him with mission parameters,” Strucker says.

“How does that work?”

“Once the wipe is finished there is a period where new information is rapidly assimilated. Standard locations, maps, even some language can be written, although luckily the asset already knew several languages before the first wipe.”

 _I taught him Russian,_ Aleks thinks. 

“Will you allow him to train another this year?”

“Yes,” Strucker says. “Our most promising recruits get this opportunity, just as you did.”

Aleks nods. He knows the girl who won that honour, the last time Ruka was woken. Aleks had been in the newly formed Israel then, unable to ask for the reward he was now receiving. A dark haired, Russian child, common enough even then. Now they send him to Israel often — he fits in perfectly, lost and alone, speaking a mixture of Russian and Yiddish. They sympathise with him right up to the point where he fulfils his mission. 

He wonders sometimes, if his family was Jewish. It’s highly possible. There are very few things he remembers about Kronos, save the screams and the fire. If his family were _yevreyskaya_ he cannot find that certainty in memory. 

They would not have been allowed to practice openly in any case.

If he is training another Red Room candidate, Ruka would be awake for a full year. There will be more than one mission. Aleks knows that in the year he was trained by him nine deaths were attributed to the asset, although he only knows this from gossip and rumour and his own childish memory of how many times Ruka was absent.

Aleks had dispatched his first target when he was nine years old. He cannot even remember the man’s face.

“Why is he put in stasis for so long?” Aleks asks. “Surely you could use him more often than this?” He does not add that many of _his_ targets could have been more efficiently dispatched by the man in front of them. He has enough professional pride not to wish to be outdone, even if he has none of Ruka’s raw advantages.

“Exposure,” Strucker says. “We cannot risk him being recognised.”

Aleks is not satisfied with that answer, but lets is slide.

They arrange Ruka in the chair, and begin the wipe.

Aleks, who has spent the last ten years killing at the order of the man beside him, feels his stomach lurch and has to fight the urge to recoil from the screams.

“The damage is not permanent,” Strucker says conversationally, not even raising his voice over the noise. “If we leave him too long the memories return. As far as we know, this is the only disadvantage to the serum.”

“He remembered who he was, after he was first found,” Aleks says. 

“You always suspected as much.”

“He was different in the village,” Aleks says. “Less angry.”

Strucker laughs. “Well, that anger was useful for a time, but his skills are just as valuable without it.”

“Angry people do stupid things,” Aleks says.

Strucker smiles. “They do.”

The wipe is finished and the technicians surrounding Ruka replace the metal clamps that delivered the electric shocks with a device that covers his ears and half of the back of his head. Ruka can hear a faint whispering as the programming is delivered, and a hint of what sounds like music. Ruka’s breathing slows and he looks almost peaceful. Aleks is on the edge of an understanding about that, remembers being eager to learn when he was first put in Ruka’s care, remembers a single, bright moment of music and dancing just before his world was ripped away for the second time in as many years. 

Looking at Ruka, now, he is suddenly unsure of why he asked for this boon at all. 

As though reading his thoughts, Strucker speaks. “Is this all you wanted, Aleks? Just to see him? Or did you hope to speak with him as well? I warn you he responds best to orders and if you are not part of his mission he is like to ignore you altogether.”

“I don’t need to speak with him,” Aleks says. 

“Most of our assassins ask for things far more decadent than this.”

“Information is the most valuable thing in the world,” Aleks says.

“You are young to come to that conclusion.”

Aleks allows himself a small smile. _I was never young_ he thinks, but says nothing. 

He does not stay to see Ruka free of the machines. He is satisfied that this is not the man he knew. Ruka would not have sat back and let them shock him (he wonders, idly, how hard it was to get him to stay for the first wipe) and Ruka would not have had that blank, almost smile on his face as he was programmed to be the tool of the Red Room. For now, there is nothing he can do to help him.

Even should he want to.

 


	22. Chapter 22

The conference room is the same as Steve left it, but the screen has gone dark to conserve power. Sam watches Steve settle Barnes in a chair. He’s not shaky or upset, but he’s giving off dark energy like nothing on earth and Sam knows he’s not gonna like one single bit of what they’re going to do next.

Barnes smirks a little when Steve turns his back and glances at Sam, giving a little shrug. Sam does his best to return the smile, but it’s hard when Steve is looming like he is, protective and all _Captainy._

He doesn’t speak, just turns on the screen and starts to play the sections that have Lukin in them.

He first appears when he’s in early middle age — accompanied by an older man who looks like he walked out of a History Channel documentary. Everything about him screams SAS, he’s only missing the damned monocle. Lukin, by contrast, is dressed simply in a rather dapper 1970s suit, with slicked back hair.

He’s powerfully built and moves with the kind of stealth and grace that Sam would normally associate with Tasha. Nothing at all like the picture of corporate competence Sam has sometimes seen on television, nothing like the frightened and elderly man who is now sitting in an interview room with Maria Hill trying desperately to convince them that he’s not a monster.

Sam looks at Barnes, who leans forward as soon as Lukin appears. What is going on in the tapes isn’t important to him, Sam realises that pretty quickly. While Steve turns away as soon as the shocks start, Barnes sits there with a slight frown on his face. Sam figures he’s not even watching what they’re doing to him, he is only interested in the people in the room who are not him.

The tape cycles through. Sam realises that his knuckles are white with how hard he’s gripping the arms of the chair and he can’t stop glancing at Barnes, whose expression doesn’t change, not even when they shock him, not even when they dig bullets and god knows what else out of his body and stitch him without anaesthetic, not even when they shove him back in the tube and freeze him and leave him in a corner like some sort of macabre ornament to their power.

He can see why Steve cried.

At the end, there are divots in the arms of the leather of the chair that Sam was sitting in and Steve is as far away from the screen as he can get, arms wrapped around his middle as though he’s trying to stop himself from throwing up. Barnes, though, hasn’t moved, or reacted in any way, and Sam would like to be a thousand miles away from here right now because he really really wishes he didn’t know exactly why that is.

“That’s all there is,” Steve says, voice hoarse as though he’s been crying the whole time. Sam figures he has been, internally at least. Barnes’ arm whirs and Sam watches the segments recalibrate, but he doesn’t speak. “We can hear the other scientists talk about Lukin as though he’s the one giving the orders, though. He coordinated at least ten of your missions, including…”

“Howard and Maria Stark,” Barnes says softly.

Steve nods. “He doesn’t need your protection,” Steve says. “He didn’t have to do what he did.”

“They would have killed him,” Barnes says.

Steve narrows his eyes. “Yeah,” he says. “They would have, Buck.”

Sam knows what Steve would have done in that position. He’s not sure if he’s a good enough person to do the same. Putting your life on the line to save someone, jumping out of a plane with nothing but a jet pack on your back and blind luck and a little bit of skill on your side — he can do that. But standing put, dying for something abstract, dying because you _believe?_

That was Steve’s trick. 

“Not everyone is like you,” Barnes says. “I still want to see him. Face to face.”

“It’s not safe, Bucky,” Steve says. “Rumlow disabled you with one word, Lukin’s got to know hundreds more.”

“So we gag him. We give him a pen and paper so he can answer my questions.”

“What questions do you have _left_ Bucky? How can you want to know more than what we just saw?”

Barnes jabs a metal finger at the screen. “He knows me. He knows what I was. Better than you, Steve, better than you ever will. If anything’s going to plug the gaps in here,” he bashes the side of his head with his flesh palm “it won’t be you and your kind words and your fucking _good intentions.”_

Steve presses his lips together, but stands straighter, a glint in his eyes that Sam hasn’t seen before. “Fine,” he says tightly. “But you have to tell me why it’s important. You have to tell me how you know this man, and don’t lie to me again Bucky I know you can remember him, you might not be the man you were but _he’s still in there_ and he could never lie to me with a straight face.”

“I don’t remember,” Barnes snarls.

“Don’t,” Steve says, quietly and with more menace than Sam’s ever heard out of him. “Just don’t. You’re hiding something and you’re doing it because you think I’m going to hate you for it but you don’t get it, Buck, that doesn’t happen that’s _never going to happen,_ I told you I was with you till the end of the line and I damned well meant it.”

Sam is trying to think of a way to get out of the room without them noticing at this point, but he doesn’t want to move, because this is important to Barnes’ recovery (and Steve’s) and he still doesn’t trust that the two of them won’t start attacking each other again (in more obviously painful ways). In his pocket, he has one hand on the tranquilliser gun but he’s not sure if he’d have to use it on Barnes or Steve.

“You died,” Barnes says finally. “That’s what happened, Steve, and when you died everything that was good in me died with you.”

“I’m not dead,” Steve says.

“You _were.”_ He gets up and walks towards the screen, eerily silent the way he always is. Sam hasn’t ever been able to relax in the same room with Barnes, he realises, because he moves like a predator and Sam doesn’t even know if that’s how he moved before Hydra got their claws into him or if he’s always been that way. 

“They found me,” Barnes says softly. “In Kronos. They found me and they dragged me to their special lab and they cut off my arm and gave me this,” he spreads the fingers of the metal arm and the segments recalibrate again, and again, until Sam feels like he’s going to hear that sound in his dreams forever. “When they had me back to full functionality they showed me your face.” Barnes chuckles bitterly. “At the Smithsonian there’s that whole fucking _display_ on the “death of the hero” — I think I even saw the same newspaper, Steve. They dragged me in drugged and crazed and showed me your face and that was all I needed to remember who I was, but it wasn’t you alive, it was the report of your death and the reminder that I’d failed the only mission that ever mattered to me. _You were dead, Steve.”_

“You remembered?” Steve sounds lost.

“In Kronos they called me _Ruka._ Aleks’ mother took me in and fed me and clothed me and let me play with her kids and I got her _killed._ I got them all killed, just because they saw my face. I didn’t know why then, I didn’t know why I was important, I didn’t believe that I could be, until they showed me your face.” 

“It was never just me, Bucky,” Steve says helplessly, but Barnes isn’t listening.

“You were dead and I’d failed, and they brought Aleks to me and told me I had to train him and I had to look after him and I had to kill for them or they’d kill him too.” He shrugs. “ _I said yes._ I knew who I was and I knew they were wrong, but I still said yes because I’m not as good as you and I could see the way out but I wasn’t brave enough to take it.”

“You didn’t have a choice Bucky,” Steve says.

“You really think that,” Barnes says. “You really think I was as good as you.” He walks up to Steve and jabs him in the chest with the metal finger and Sam figures it hurts, but Steve doesn’t even flinch or back away. “I’m not and I never was. I shouldn’t have believed them when they said they wouldn’t kill Aleks.” He laughs. “I should have realised that if they’d killed him it would have been better for all of us.”

“Wait up,” Sam shakes his head. “James, they held the kid over you as a hostage, it _isn’t_ your fault.”

“It doesn’t _matter_ Sam,” Barnes says. “I chose it. I could have said no. I didn’t. End of story.”

“If you’d said no they would have killed Lukin,” Steve says slowly.

“I killed his whole family, Steve,” Barnes shouts, throwing up his hands. “He should have died at Kronos. All I did was postpone it and then they used him anyway. They used _me_ anyway. At least if I’d said no at the beginning there would have been a chance the first time they put me in cryo I would have died.” He takes a deep breath. “Just like I should have when I fell of that fucking train.”

Steve catches Barnes’ metal arm in his and pulls him close. “No,” he says. “No. _Goddammit_ Bucky. I should have gone back for you this isn’t your fault and you damned well know it. Stop blaming yourself. I would have done the same thing…”

“Don’t _you_ start lying to me Steve!”

“What, you think I’ve never done anything wrong? You think I’ve gone through the past two years since I woke up putting all my feet right, not making a single mistake? Want to count up the number of people _I’ve_ gotten killed since I signed up, the way you told me I shouldn’t? because guess what, Bucky I reckon I’d give you a run for your money there.”

“Don’t be an idiot Steve, it’s not the same thing.”

“Isn’t it? You remember the war. You remember the Commandos and you remember the units we sent on missions they never came back from.” Steve pushes Barnes back. “How many of those people went blindly into death just because I was standing there with the uniform on telling them it was the right thing to do? Do you know how many SHIELD agents got themselves shot just because I gave a speech and told them it was for freedom and liberty? Even before the damned helicarriers and Hydra. How many of _those_ men were actually dying because of something they believed in or because of Pierce and the algorithm. _God_ Bucky. Don’t you get it? _It’s never right. Sometimes it’s just necessary.”_

“You can’t stand there and tell me you wouldn’t have done better,” Barnes shouts back at him. “You would have saved him, you would have saved yourself…”

“I should have saved _you._ And I didn’t and that’s my fault and I’m so sorry, Buck, I’m so… I’m…” Sam watches him break and it’s ugly because Barnes just stands there and watches while he cries, metal arm clenching and recalibrating, breath heaving in and out of his body and it feels wrong because Barnes just spent an hour or more watching himself get tortured but this is the thing that hits him, where the shocks and the torture and the wipes had brushed past him like nothing important, the sight of Steve hurting is what finally breaks through the mask.

“Shit. _Shit_. Steve stop.” He moves forward jerkily, like he can’t control his limbs, grabs Steve’s shoulder in his flesh hand, pulls him towards him in a gesture that seems familiar and horribly wrong all at once. Steve folds into Barnes like he’s a lifeline and clings and Sam really _really_ wants to leave now but he’s not stupid and he knows they’re not safe.

They stand there for a minute before Steve gets himself back under control. When he pulls back he has his hands on Barnes’ shoulders.

“Steve I need to see him. I just. I need to know if Aleks is still in there somewhere.”

“You just saw what he did to you Buck. You can’t think there’s anything left that cares.”

“Maybe there isn’t,” Barnes says. “But I still need to know.”

Steve blinks hard, then nods. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah I can understand that.”


	23. Chapter 23

When Aleks is twenty-eight, he returns from a mission in the south of France to find Strucker and Zola in his apartment.

To see both of them together like this means something important. He has been on a jet for six hours, a train before that. He’d barely had time to wash the blood from his hands when they’d snatched him away from his mission and now… 

He is trained well. He dumps his gear on the floor and waits.

“Herr Lukin,” Strucker says. “We have a proposition for you.”

 

It is an interesting story. Strucker is getting old, his son will eventually take his place as the nominal head of Hydra (no one person is given this responsibility, but Strucker is the only leader that Aleks has ever known) and Aleks knows that he is unwilling to spread responsibilities. Even many headed as Hydra is, Strucker likes to think of himself as the real power behind all. To have Zola come to him with this… sorcery… must have tried his patience (and his belief) sorely.

“You truly believe that the Red Skull is still alive in this…”

“Tesseract,” Strucker says, making a face. “Doctor Zola certainly believes so. He has been in communication with him for some time.”

“Crudely,” Zola says. “The tesseract is difficult to work with, too powerful. But Schmidt’s consciousness is most definitely present.”

“Does SHIELD know?”

Strucker shakes his head. “Stark is too literal, he will not listen to the voices, or believes he is being driven mad by grief… drink… whatever it is that he obsesses over now. Director Carter has removed him from the tesseract project as a liability. Zola is now in charge.”

“Under stifling restrictions,” Zola mutters. “They _still_ do not trust me.”

Strucker puts a hand on Zola’s shoulder. “Naturally not, Doctor,” Strucker says. “But you have access, and you will be able to do what is necessary to transfer Schmidt’s consciousness to Aleks’ body.”

Aleks’ heart thumps. “I am sorry, Baron, you wish to…?”

“Transfer the consciousness of the Red Skull into your body, Herr Lukin,” Strucker says. 

He must not have been able to conceal the true extent of his horror, because Zola smiles (a coward’s smile, Aleks has always thought) and Strucker chuckles. “Do not be too concerned,” Strucker says. “Zola assures me that this is not a… how did you put it, Arnim?”

“He will not be in control,” Zola says. “We have not yet perfected the transfer process, but his consciousness is breaking down in the tesseract and he needs to be moved to a living host.”

Aleks swallows. “Explain.”

“Schmidt will be a… voice in your head,” Zola says. “He will advise you. Talk to you. Give you the benefit of his genius.”

“Will he…” Aleks frowns. “Will he be able to hear _my_ thoughts?”

“We do not think so,” Zola says.

Aleks hesitates, and Strucker expression hardens.

Aleks has forgotten. They have given him too much freedom, over the past few years.

He is not permitted to hesitate on matters such as this. 

“With Schmidt’s help, Herr Lukin,” Strucker says, “you could rise very far in Hydra. To the top, perhaps.”

Aleks narrows his eyes. “This is a tempting offer,” he says carefully. “But to me it sounds as though it would not be _Aleksander Lukin_ who rises to the top.”

Strucker purses his lips, then nods to Zola. “Allow us a moment alone, Doctor,” he says. 

Zola mutters something under his breath, but retreats to one of the bedrooms. Aleks has a fine apartment in Moscow, and another in New York. He has been thinking of starting his own business, once they stop sending him on missions. His work for Hydra will always come first, but the shelf life of a red room assassin is short, and Aleks would like to live past the usual allotted handful of years.

“Do you believe that Zola can do this?” he asks Strucker.

Strucker shrugs. “Perhaps. He is increasingly erratic. Brilliant. But unhinged. This could very well be all in his head. He has, however, created a device that will perform the transfer, and according to Zola, Schmidt will die forever if he is not transferred to a host body.”

“I am unwilling to share mine with anyone,” Aleks says. “I will not lie to you.”

“I can understand your reluctance, Herr Lukin. I for one would be tempted to refuse, even knowing the consequences.” Strucker does not bother to veil the threat.

“Can you not find someone else? Someone random?”

“Zola insists that the host body will still have autonomy. We cannot risk an unknown deciding it is better to die than to live with the Red Skull as a permanent companion.”

“Is it permanent?” Aleks asks.

Strucker smiles again. “It does not have to be.”

Aleks tilts his head. “You want this to fail.”

Strucker shrugs. “Schmidt and I never saw eye to eye, Herr Lukin. It would be no loss to me were his consciousness… mislaid in this transfer. It would be even less of a loss to me, if, for example, this should not work, that you _pretend that it did.”_

Aleks is interested now, and leans forward. “Tell me more, Baron.”

 

A week later they bring him to the tesseract chamber. Zola has assured him that once this process is complete, should things go wrong, they can extract Schmidt, and put his consciousness into some other vessel — an underling, someone expendable. Aleks has been very careful with Strucker, extracting promises, guarantees of his bodily autonomy. If it comes to that, if by some miracle Zola’s transfer is successful? Aleks has a way out.

Part of him is curious, however. To hold the power of the Red Skull, in his own body. To be able to access that knowledge, that genius (mad as it had been) is appealing.

So long as it does not come at the cost of his own sanity.

The room is eerie, blue light bathing the walls as the cube pulses with power. Aleks does not wish to look at it too closely, and it is not necessary in any case. Zola is there, working with machines and electrodes in ways that make Aleks think, briefly and painfully, of Ruka in his chair.

It has been five years since he last saw the Asset. Not Ruka, not any longer. He has trained two more Red Room candidates. One of those was killed on his first mission.

They sit Aleks in a chair, but do not restrain him. Zola attaches electrodes to his temples and two other scientists scurry around him, checking equipment and reading tapes. Strucker stands in sight, ready for Aleks’ signal.

“When you are ready, Doctor,” Strucker says. Zola’s smile is child like in its intensity and Aleks swallows the bad taste that suddenly rises in his throat. 

If he had refused this deal, he has no doubt that Strucker would have ordered his death. His choices are, as always, narrow and limited. Perhaps this will be his first step towards freedom.

Aleks is no longer certain what freedom means, aside from something that he strives towards.

The blue light flickering around the tesseract intensifies and coalesces. Aleks’ eyes are drawn to it against his will and he watches as tendrils reach towards him. If he wished, he could break free and run, take down Zola and Strucker. He has no illusions about their capabilities as fighters, he was trained by the best and he is almost as good as the Asset. 

Only then — then he would have to run for the rest of his life.

He shuts his eyes as the first of the blue strands touches his face and does not waste time cursing choices that have always been made for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies again people for the delay in chapters at the moment - I had an assignment due (which is done now!) and a lot of other deadlines are looming so chapters will probably be posted only once (at most twice) a week until the end of the story. It's not abandoned and I promise the end is plotted and coming. Thanks for reading :D.


	24. Chapter 24

Steve insists on coming with him, and Sam insists on coming with Steve, and that seems okay with Barnes, who just shrugs. They tell Hill, who scowls at Steve and tells him they’ll be on monitor the whole time, and Steve, who is rocking back and forth on his heels with repressed energy, nods tightly and steers Barnes down to the holding cell.

Sam takes a moment to wonder how often as the Soldier Barnes was ever left alone. On the tapes, he always woke to a room full of scientists. When he’d been trying to kill Natasha and Steve in DC he’d been followed by a legion of guys with weapons (Sam had personally dispatched four of them and watched Steve and Nat decimate the rest). Perhaps there’d been missions in the past where he’d been alone, but there was no guarantee that Barnes could even remember a time when it was possible to look around and not see another face, save after the Potomac, on the run from (or to?) the man he’d been so determined to kill.

He is never alone. He is always watched. 

Sam is a pretty social guy, most of the time. He has a lot of friends, and he spends a lot of time with people, it’s his job. But he knows how important it is to have time for yourself, he knows, from spending family vacations shut up with his sister in the back of the car for hours, how close to the edge you can get even when you don’t have trauma — 

— then he remembers the way the ice crawled over the cylinder that held Barnes for years between missions and shudders with sudden cold.

Lukin’s cell is in the middle of the building, windowless save for the two way glass where Barnes had seen him earlier, but roomy, with a table and a single chair. They go inside and Lukin looks up, taking in Steve first, eyes narrowing. “Captain,” he says, voice even with a hint of a Russian accent. Steve’s face doesn’t change, but Sam can see that muscle move in his jaw as Lukin nods at Sam with something akin to respect. “Mr Wilson.”

“Hey,” Sam says. Barnes slips in behind them both and stands across the room from Lukin. He’s dressed in combat gear — the kind of uniform Sam had worn for years in Iraq, shaved, his hair neatly tied back from his face. It’s very significantly not the uniform he wore as the Soldier, yet Barnes looks no less menacing for that.

His arm segments are muffled by the cloth of the shirt he wears, but Sam can still hear them as they rearrange. 

Lukin blinks a moment, then leans forward, hands (manacled) on the table, eyes wide. “Ruka,” he breathes.

“ _Malyutka,”_ Barnes says, but his voice is flat. Sam has no idea what the word means, but Lukin flinches back.

“I asked for you,” Lukin says. “I knew they’d found you. Rumlow was always a fool.”

“Stupid of them to send him after me, then,” Barnes says. 

Lukin smiles a little. “Yes,” he says. “Or clever.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sam says, but neither man pays any attention to him.

“Do you remember, Ruka?” Lukin asks. “Do you remember Kronos?”

Barnes tilts his head, eyes narrowing. “Do you?”

Lukin’s hands spread out on the table, fingers that are long and elegant, spotted with age, but strong. They aren’t the hands of a businessman, Sam realises. There are nicks and scars across them, callouses and old wounds. 

The hands of a soldier.

“I was a child,” he says, and the smile that spreads across his face is pitying. The dark eyes raise and look steadily at Barnes, who doesn’t flinch. “But then again, so were you, weren’t you?”

“I saw the tapes,” Barnes says, roughly. 

Lukin’s eyes slide away and he shrugs a little, although Sam can see colour come to his cheeks. _“Oni zastavili menya. YA umru, yesli ya otkazhus’.”_

Steve, who has been as far as Sam is concerned, _remarkably_ stoic up till now, snaps. “Then you _should_ have,” he says, obviously understanding the Russian (Sam never would have thought he’d needed it, especially now that he was technically retired).

“Steve,” Barnes looks at him, and Steve shakes his head.

 _“Bucky,”_ Steve says. _“_ Get what you need and get out of here. He isn’t worth your time.”

A smile spreads across Lukin’s face as he once again looks at Steve. His eyes light up, greedy and interested. “The would wipe you as soon as you started to remember him, Ruka,” Lukin says, and his voice changes subtly, taunting when before it was pleading. “It was always the first sign, asking for your _Captain._ Still, every time it took longer. Some of the men hoped that eventually you’d forget altogether.”

 _“Aleks,”_ Barnes says, and Sam, who hasn’t taken his eyes from Lukin, swears he sees a shift in those eyes as his brows draw together and he turns his head back to Barnes.

Something is very wrong.

“You know only four of the red room candidates survived past their fifth mission, Ruka?” Lukin says.

“The red room?” Steve says, looking at Barnes.

“We’re not here to talk about that, Aleks,” Barnes says.

“No. I suppose Agent Romanoff would be upset with you if we did,” Lukin flexes his wrists in the cuffs, then looks up at Barnes and smiles. “You know I was going to try to help you, Ruka. We were going to escape together. Eventually.”

“Really.”

Lukin’s smile is as bright as the sun. “No,” he says. “Of course not.”

No one is ready for how fast the old man can move, or for his strength, as he shoves back the table and kicks away the chair. Barnes turns, mouth open to shout and Steve, _Steve,_ of course, shoves Barnes out of the way so he stumbles into Sam and they are a mess of limbs against the wall as Steve lunges towards Lukin, face twisted in anger.

All of that would have been fine, if it had been Barnes Lukin was aiming for.

There is a blue flash as Lukin’s open palm connects with Steve’s as he tries to stop Lukin from doing whatever the hell it is Lukin wants to do and Steve gives a soft grunt which is the only sound Sam thinks he’s ever heard Steve make when he’s hurt. Barnes shoves Sam aside, leaping forward and using the metal arm to _throw_ Lukin off Steve, who has collapsed on the ground, blue tendrils snaking up his arm.

Lukin has hit the wall, and slid down, looking dazed and Steve is sitting there, looking at his hand with that frown between his eyes. “Looks like the tesseract,” he says, obviously confused. Barnes grabs at Steve’s shoulders, shaking him. 

“Stevie. Stevie look at me what’s going on what did he do?” Steve shrugs and shakes his head, starting to laugh. “I dunno Buck but it feels kinda…” Sam kneels next to Lukin, who has blood trickling out of the corner of his mouth. He blinks at Sam, shaking his head. 

 _“YA sozhaleyu,”_ he says softly. _“Ruka.”_

Bucky’s head whips around, eyes narrowing as Steve slumps backwards. The blue tendrils have worked their way up to Steve’s head and his body has gone rigid.

“Oh god,” Sam hears him say, but his voice is all wrong. “Not _him…”_ Barnes looks back down at Steve, eyes widening. 

“Steve?” but Steve isn’t tracking, is barely breathing suddenly. The door bursts open and Hill and Morse pile in, Hill with her gun trained on Barnes but Sam shouts _“No,_ it wasn’t him. Lukin did something, it was Lukin… Jesus we need to find out what…”

“Dammit _Barnes_ what did he do!” Hill shouts, kneeling next to Steve. Barnes is shaking his head, eyes still wide, one hand resting on Steve’s shoulder. 

“I don’t know! I don’t know…” his, metal hand is tangled in Steve’s hair, the other one clutching at Steve’s shoulder. “I don’t know I don’t know…” Morse kneels on Steve’s other side and checks for a pulse, then speaks into her comm calling for medics and a stretcher. Sam leans down and catches Lukin’s chin in his, staring at the man who seems suddenly lost.

“I tried,” Lukin croaks. “Not to let him do it. But it was what he always wanted. And it’s been so long and it’s so hard to fight.”

“Look,” Sam says. _“Lukin_ , you’re in so much trouble right now you’d better make some sense before I let the assassin on you.”

“Ruka will not hurt me,” Lukin says, head lolling, laughing a little. “Tell him,” his voice shakes, and he takes a breath, “tell him there is a chance Rogers can fight free. Tell him I was never strong enough, because I wanted things from him. I know Rogers does not. Rogers will resist.”

Sam has to stop himself from shaking him. “Resist what?”

Lukin looks up at Barnes, who is standing over the top of them now, looking down at Lukin with exactly the same expression Sam can remember from the helicarrier, when he calmly kicked Steve off to die.

“Schmidt,” Lukin says simply. 

Barnes reaches down with the metal hand and takes hold of Lukin’s shirt, ready to pick him up and shake him for information.

“Hey hey, James, let’s not… don’t…”

 _“Ostav'te yego!”_ Natasha’s voice is harsh and Barnes seems to react to it on a visceral level, dropping Lukin and spinning, a snarl on his face. The medics are there, gently lifting Steve’s body onto a stretcher. Morse is directing them while Hill talks into her comm. Natasha, though, is standing just inside the doorway, looking at Barnes. Hill directs the medics, who go to Lukin, moving skittishly past Barnes who’s breath is heaving in and out of his chest. 

“Keep him alive,” Hill says to the medic. “He can tell us more.”

“Yes ma’am,” the medic replies, and they shuffle out of the room. Barnes moves to follow, but Natasha puts one hand on his shoulder shoving him back with shocking violence. 

Sam wouldn’t have dared be that rough with him, but Natasha is angrier than he’s ever seen her and right now he isn’t sure of who he should be afraid of. 

 _“Nyet,”_ she says, showing her teeth. “You don’t get to be with him. Not now.”

Barnes turns away from her, hissing breath. Sam is expecting it, but it is still a shock when he lets out a cry and slams his metal fist into the wall. 

The wall cracks and plaster crumbles down in a small rain. 

“What the hell just happened?” Sam asks.

Hill joins them, arms folded, glaring at Barnes who has his head resting against the wall he’s just pounded, looking down. “I was about to ask the same thing,” she says. 

“I don’t know,” Barnes says again, then he looks up. “But Aleks will.” His lips press together in a thin line. “I’ll make sure he tells me.”

Natasha shakes her head. “No, James,” she says. _“I_ will.”


	25. Chapter 25

Natasha has interrogated more targets in her time than she cares to remember — both for SHIELD and for the KGB. She remembers their faces, remembers what pressure she had to apply in what situations.

Seated next to the sickbed of a seventy-one year old man who is willing to tell her everything she wishes to know voluntarily should not be so difficult.

Barnes ( _James)_ had been dragged away unwillingly, torn between wanting to hurt and wanting answers. Despite his memory gaps it’s obvious to Natasha that he is protective of Steve to the point of madness — having Steve in danger has made him a liability that she hopes Sam can deal with.

She would be no help there. This is all tied up together, her past, his future, this man’s death.

Because he is dying, Aleksander Lukin. Doctor Carter confirms it — a terminal growth in his liver — it’s astonishing that he was able to go about his daily life without it being common knowledge, but then Natasha knows that this man has all the resources of Hydra behind him.

Had.

He speaks Russian to her, which should not hurt as much as it does. This whole thing, ever since Steve asked her to look into the Winter Soldier, ever since Odessa, if she is honest with herself — brings parts of her back to the surface that she’d wanted to bury forever.

It makes her laugh to herself, that she ever thought she could outrun it.

“I was the first, you know,” Lukin says. “The first that he trained. Before he even lost his memories.”

“We know, Aleks,” Natasha says. “We have the files now.”

“He was always so protective of us, of his red soldiers. You remember, don’t you Natalia? Even when he’d been wiped the graduates all felt…” Lukin’s mouth curls on the word — a forbidden one, to them. To all of them. “…affection for him.”

Those memories, of her childhood, of the training sessions with the man she later learned to call Sasha — she represses them the hardest. So far that when they finally met again, in Iran, she had even less idea of who he had been to her than he until she saw the metal arm. Protector. Teacher. They’d shown each other the only kindness either of them had ever known in that place but in the end it had meant nothing.

That mission had been one of her biggest failures. The nuclear scientist — Amal, his name had been, she made a point to remember the ones that she failed — had died. She had nearly died as well, trying to be to James what Clint had been to her. Stupid of her. 

She learns from her mistakes, but sometimes the best thing to learn is that it is worth making them twice. 

“Tell me about Schmidt,” she says.

He tells her.

 

Steve is in a different part of the tower, hooked up to monitors in one of Stark’s labs. Stark and Bobbi are arguing with each other when she comes in, Sam is looking fed up and sitting next to Steve, who looks peaceful in sleep.

Natasha can remember when he’d been defrosted — the tank (so similar to the one the Winter Soldier had been in, she wonders, now, where that technology came from, distrusts almost everything to do with SHIELD and their motives for keeping him alive). She’d left the room, and Clint had wanted to know what was wrong and she’d refused to tell him and they’d fought.

They fought a lot, back then. Still do.

“We have a problem,” she says.

“You’re telling me, Tasha,” Bobbi says, examining a monitor. “His brain functions are all over the place — mind state definitely disrupted. Tell me you got something from Lukin.”

“Lukin says he used the tesseract’s power to transfer Johann Schmidt’s consciousness into Steve’s body,” she says, handing the device Lukin had embedded under his skin to Bobbi. She looks at it curiously, turning it over in her hands. Natasha could see no way to turn it on, or find a power source for it. Lukin had said it was one use only — he’d had it embedded as soon as they knew Steve was alive.

Schmidt had wanted this for years — the only body suitable for him was one that had the serum. Tasha can understand the motivation there, despite the stories Steve had told her about how proud Schmidt was of his own transformation. There must always have been resentment. Jealousy. Lukin had had to live with that inside him for seventy years. It was little wonder, really, that he seems disinclined to fight against the illness that is killing him. 

She notes, with some amusement, that Sam pulls the hand he was resting on Steve’s back sharply when she gives them the news, eyes narrowing and lip curling.

“Shit,” Sam says. 

“Pretty much,” Tasha says.

“How do we get him out?” Stark says.

“Without the tesseract, we don’t.”

Stark pulls out his phone. “What are you doing?” Sam says.

“Calling Jane Foster, unless one of you guys has finally convinced Thor to get a phone?”

“You really think Thor’s going to give us the Tesseract to bring back Steve, Tony? He took it with him for a _reason.”_

“I’ll use my nice voice,” Stark says, darkly. 

“Thor might not be able to get it for us in any case,” Tasha says. “He’s not the main power in Asgard, you know that as well as I do.”

Stark waves a hand and turns, speaking on the phone. Tasha turns to Sam, who has his hands clasped between his knees, looking at Steve with a slight frown on his face.

“So what happens?” Sam says quietly.

“Steve will fight it,” Tasha says. 

“And if he loses?” 

She allows herself a small smile and squeezes Sam’s shoulder. “You really think he’s going to lose, Wilson?”

That crooked grin tries to manifest, but he’s obviously tired, and worn out with worrying about other people. 

“He’s gotta be hurting,” Sam says then, as the smile falters. “Having that bastard in there with him.”

“As long as he’s asleep we know he’s fighting,” Tasha says. 

Sam’s eyes go distant. “He never stops,” he says. “Poor kid.”

She pulls up a chair and sits next to him with easy familiarity. They’d earned that — fighting together. He saw the worth in Steve and she saw the worth in both of them.

She wonders, sometimes, what Steve sees when he looks at her. She’d thought she’d known, before the bunker, and thought she didn’t care. “He’s older than both of us put together,” she says.

“Nah,” Sam says. “Reminds me of the new boys on tour, none of it’s rubbed off him, the ideals, the grand plans, the… whatever. None of it. Lost everything and he’s still a damned raw recruit Tasha. Thirty, going on nineteen, I swear.”

She tilts her head, studying the sleeping face, the ridiculously long eyelashes, the full lips. As she watches, that faint line appears between his eyebrows. Something is definitely going on in that mind, but she finds she isn’t worried. She leans forward and puts one hand over Steve’s, feeling the softness of skin that didn’t scar, the warmth, the barely contained strength.

“He can do it,” she says.

She has faith.


	26. Chapter 26

It’s cold in Brooklyn that night, colder than Steve can remember it being this time of year. He guesses it’s partly because the flat is empty again — Bucky’s still out with the girls he’d brought on their routinely disastrous double dates and Steve doesn’t really expect him home before he’s fallen asleep.

He’s not sure if he can sleep, not like this, not when he’s keyed up, his acceptance file still gripped in a hand that is sweating even in the chill air.

He puts the folder down on the rickety table, shucking his too big coat, intending to shower, stand under the lukewarm water until he gets the illusion of warmth back, but when he turns to go to the bathroom, someone is there.

“Buck?” he says, voice quavering. There is a low chuckle, and while Bucky isn’t below trying to scare the crap out of him sometimes, he wouldn’t do it here.

This is their place, and it is safe.

“I’m not your Sergeant, Captain,” the shadow said and stepped forward into the light. Steve frowned. 

“I’m no Captain. What are you doing here?” he’d heard about this. In the neighbourhood they were in, there were people sometimes, who beat up on guys because they got off on it, they came here from other parts of the city and the neighbourhood cracked down on it, because whatever else you did, when you were from Brooklyn you looked after your own.

At least, from outsiders.

“Why did you choose here, this night, Steven Grant Rogers?” the figure moves forward, and although light from the lamp on the table bathes the area Steve stands in pale yellow, for some reason the figure’s face stays in shadow.

Steve isn’t an idiot. The world doesn’t work that way.

“Is this a dream?” he says. 

_Is this a test?_

 

His mom is sick and Steve doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t get sick, not like this, in all his life she’s been the strong one, the one who copes with _his_ fevers and keeps _him_ warm. Seeing her like this, in her bed, thin hands clutching the covers as she coughs (and he knows that cough, has heard it enough in the TB ward, he knows he _knows what this means but what happens when she’s gone?)_ trying to put a brave face on it for her little soldier.

He’s twenty-one years old and it’s been hard enough to make rent and food as it is, hard enough to get the medicine he needs let alone the medicine she won’t tell him is necessary for _her_ and his hand shakes as he paints  the mural on the wall, even though his lines are _always_ steady (he’s known for it, good reliable Steve) he’s terrified he’s going to thrown out of the program if he can’t get the picture right…

He stands back, to check the lines and the colours, because he may have been given a specific project and he may not necessarily always like the subject matter (they like his style, because he’s realistic and dynamic, because he doesn’t try anything funny or modern — why would you when you can show so much by just painting what’s _there)_ and he frowns.

This isn’t the picture he’s been painting.

It’s a caricature of a face, a red skull, grinning at him like it knows something personal enough to Steve to rip his own heart out. 

He knows that face.

“Schmidt,” he says, and the wall crumbles, a tank driving through it straight towards him, he reaches for his shield but it isn’t there, it wouldn’t matter his arm is too weak to wield it and the tank is going to run him into the ground and there is _nothing he can do_. He stands and faces it, waiting for the end.

_The end of the line._

 

The cold is deeper here, but Steve can’t feel it because Steve is focused on the mission. Get to the front of the train. Find Zola. Capture Zola. He hasn’t got time for thoughts of Bucky behind him, Bucky who the night before, when the intel first came in, had narrowed his eyes and clenched his jaw with remembered pain. Steve had looked at him, and opened his mouth…

“Don’t you fucking dare, Steve,” Bucky had hissed, even though Steve would never have told him to stay behind, not for this. He doesn’t even know now, what he would have said if Bucky hadn’t interrupted him. What do you say to a man about to face his torturer? Are you okay? Please don’t kill him we need him? Maybe we can make him help you? _Maybe I can kill him for you._

Steve is above that.

“You’re not,” a voice whispers. “You’ve always wanted revenge, I know it, I can taste it here in your mind, revenge against Zola, revenge against me. What if I gave you that chance?”

“Steve what the fuck?” Bucky’s hand is on his shoulder, and Steve has a sudden surge of protectiveness so strong that it makes him double over. 

“Bucky something’s wrong…” Bucky shoves him out of the way as the shot is fired, blue light, the hydra weapon accurate and deadly and Steve can only watch as Bucky is dissolved into ash. _He should have had the shield, why didn’t he have the shield?_ He cries out, hand reaching for where his friend was, a voice in his head screaming that _this is wrong this isn’t how it happened this isn’t real it’s not real he’s alive._

He shouts, clutching at the sides of his head. Screws his eyes tight. 

 

He blinks and he’s in the plane. Flickers of blue light from the tesseract surround him, he is filled with a sense of dread. Peggy’s voice in his ear is distorted. It sounds like it’s being jammed, it sounds like _Zola’s electronic voice in the bunker_ it sounds like a machine.

_“You died for nothing, Steve,” she says. “You left us all and you left him and it’s your fault.”_

The blue light curls around his hands on the controls, snaking up his arms towards his chest. “You don’t give up, do you?” Schmidt says, from behind him, and when Steve turns he’s standing there as though the tesseract hadn’t consumed him whole and shot him into space. 

“You’re not real,” Steve says.

“I’m more real than anything you have ever faced, Captain America. Steven Grant Rogers. Nomad. Fighter. Invader. _Destroyer.”_

Steve has his shield in his hands, he doesn’t remember being without it, doesn’t remember a time when it felt wrong in his hands. This is _his._ His to fight with, his to defend with. He slams it into the ground between him and Schmidt, holds his hands on its rim, looking up into the sockets of Schmidt’s eyes 

“You really think you’re going to win this, Johann?” he says softly. “This is my field. My battle. I’ve done enough wrestling with my own demons not to give in to yours.”

Schmidt smiles, bright white teeth in the red face. The Valkyrie disappears from around them and they are back on the causeway in DC, eerily silent and empty of traffic. Steve remembers the thump of the Winter Soldier’s feet on the roof of their car, remembers Sitwell’s scream as he was pulled from the vehicle, remembers being hurled through the air by the impact of the soldier’s missile. But here, there is no sound, no wind. Just Schmidt, his shield and a fight he knows he cannot afford to lose.

“Shall we see?” Schmidt says.

_On va voir._


	27. Chapter 27

Barnes prowls his room like a caged tiger, metal arm flexing with that tell tale sound. She hears that sound sometimes, when she dreams, remembering the press of metal fingers on her skin.

She wakes up shuddering from those dreams. Clint, bless him, does not ask why. 

Entering the room, though she takes a moment to admire that he’s capable of that level of fire after Hydra had frozen it out of him (over and over and over). When he had been the Soldier he had been pure menace — running cold and deep with none of the passion that Rogers’ current predicament had brought out in him. 

He looks up as she makes a small sound and that is also an achievement. There had been a time when she would never have been able to sneak up on him.

She’s gotten better over the years.

The passion and fire of James Bucky Barnes is returning, but that also means that the Soldier — the man she’d known as Sasha — is receding. The man she knew (and thought she might have loved) is gone, and she supposes that the man that Steve knew is gone as well. This is someone different, someone fresh and uncertain and finding their way.

Tasha would have to handle him like glass.

“How is he?” he asks.

She shrugs. “Fighting it,” she says. Barnes’ jaw works and he nods tightly. “You know Lukin,” he says. “Did you know him as Aleks?”

“I thought he was KGB,” Tasha says. “Never confirmed it, but you know how it is in these secret organisations. The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.” She smiles at him crookedly and he gives her the exact same look Steve gives her when he thinks she’s trying to be funny. What Steve doesn’t know, and what Barnes obviously doesn’t know either, is that she is certifiably hilarious. She lifts one eyebrow a little and then Barnes gives the smallest shake of his head, and his lips quirk up at the edges.

Perhaps Bucky Barnes _is_ worth knowing, then. Just as much as Steve Rogers is.

“You know me too,” he says then, and he looks away, and the smile fades. 

“Yes,” she says.

“You told me I had to recover the memories myself and I’ve been trying but when I try to think about _you_ it’s…” he stops.

“You shot me,” she says simply.

He pulls back, frowning. “I… I’m sorry?”

“You shot me twice actually,” she continues. “If you count DC that is. I suppose I should start keeping track.”

He looks completely lost, and then she gets a glimpse of Sergeant James Barnes, the man Steve used to talk about before DC. _Everyone tries to make him into some kind of ladies man,_ he’d said, chuckling. _Truth was he was just… nice. Funny how some dames liked that more than anything else._ “I’ll try not to do it again?” he says.

“I’d appreciate it,” she winks.

The incredulous look comes back and he takes a breath. “Will you tell me what happened between us? Before I shot you, obviously. Uh. If there _was_ anything before that I seem to remember there sometimes not being much interaction other than a bullet…”

“I was in the red room,” she says. He looks startled, and faintly disgusted, which confirms that he does not remember that part.

“I trained you? But I only…”

“Trained children. Yes. For a year, when I was six.”

“That was the standard from what I remember,” Barnes says, but he still looks very troubled. “Alex was younger but he was big for his age.”

“A year is all we needed. That’s what they told me any way. When they were trying to stop me from finding you.”

“You tried to find me?”

“I managed it, in the end, but not until I was a lot older. I did my best to forget it though.”

“You found my cryo tube,” he says, understanding.

She looks down. The tube had been cold to the touch, which was not logical. His face had looked far, far younger behind that glass than she’d remembered. “Yes.”

“Why do I…?” he comes forward a little. “You weren’t just my student. I don’t. When I look at you I don’t remember you like that.”

She sighs, sitting on the chair near his bed. “We were on a mission together. Five years ago. I didn’t know who you were. My memories… they never wiped me the way they did you but there are other ways to make us forget, other ways to change the pasts they construct for us.”

“We worked together?”

“Against each other.” She shrugs. “I’d been recruited by SHIELD by then, taken in by Fury. I used standard seduction techniques. They’re so much funnier when you find out you’re both using them on each other.” He cocks an eyebrow at her and she marks that down as something else to repay Hydra. The man she slept with didn’t even _remember_ it. He’d been programmed. She feels a little sick to the stomach at that. Agent Romanoff was _not_ comfortable with everything. “We went out separate ways, agreed to tell our handlers that the mission was compromised, which it was, not that I intended to abandon it we just needed another angle…”

His eyes narrow. “They sent me back out after you.” 

She swallows and nods. “They wiped you first. You didn’t know me at all. I thought — I thought you were just that good.” She touches her stomach, where the scar is, gently. “It ended predictably.”

“They told me I’d never failed a mission, until Steve,” he said softly.

“You didn’t fail this one either,” she shrugs. She stands and moves forward, reaching out hesitantly. He doesn’t move away, and she puts her hand on his metal arm. “I didn’t know what they were doing to you, if I had I would have tried harder to make you come with me.” Loki’s words are echoing in her head and she is suddenly, furiously angry. _Your ledger is dripping,_ gushing _red, and you think to even it by saving a man no more virtuous than yourself? This is the basest sentimentality._ She looks up at him. _This is a child at prayer._ “I’m sorry,” she says. 

He shakes his head. “I don’t remember. Or, no. I remember flashes. Feelings. You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

“I looked for you for a long time afterwards,” she says. “I wanted to punish you, for beating me. For fooling me. For leaving me. Aleks was right, you looked after us when you trained us, you made us feel special in a way the others couldn’t. In Odessa I felt betrayed in more ways than one.”

“I’m…”

She shakes her head. “You don’t need to apologise. You saved Steve. You let me live. You came back. Eventually. When it gets down to it, if we tallied it up we’d probably come out pretty even,” she says. _So much for ledgers._ “And there’s not many people out there I can say that about.”

“None that I can,” Barnes says, and that crooked smile is back. “Save Steve.”

She nods. “Suuure,” she drawls. There’s a lot she can say about that, about the fact that he thinks he still owes Steve, that he thinks, at least on a subconscious level, that Steve owes _him._ But that’s for them to sort out, not her. “Any way, I can live with it. With what happened between us, then and now. And there’s no point in apologising, none of us are the same people we were then. Not even Steve.”

Barnes rolls his eyes and she can see the shift in him, from Soldier to Bucky. Bucky stands a bit straighter, shoulders thrust out, head tilted. “Nah,” he says. “Steve never changes.”

“Don’t believe that, James Buchanan Barnes,” she says, and he gives a dry, raspy chuckle.

“It’s really Schmidt?” he asks.

“Lukin thinks so.”

Barnes lets out a string of curses in Russian — some of them don’t translate very well and she wonders exactly how messed up and intertwined the Soldier and Bucky are in his head. “I need to see him,” he says finally and Tasha nods.

“I know.”


	28. Chapter 28

Steve looks almost the same as he did when he used to sleep in that tiny room in Brooklyn. Long lashes hitting his cheekbones, breath even. It’s almost possible to pretend this isn’t Captain America, that he’s just that punk Stevie Rogers, sleeping through the sunrise like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

Almost possible to pretend to be Bucky Barnes and not The Asset, put on the old persona like his dress uniform, smile, be normal.

Almost.

“I don’t like him being here,” Stark is standing in the doorway, whispering to Hill, conveniently forgetting (or more likely not caring) that James’ enhanced hearing can pick up every word he says. The Asset in him has noted Stark’s attitude to him, noticed it weeks ago when he was forced into pity for him, repairing his arm rather than removing it. Stark knows The Asset killed his parents. James can remember it. Ironic that he has such a clear picture of Howard Stark’s death to in his mind, when he can barely remember the man in life.

“Steve would want him here,” Hill says, and she doesn’t bother to whisper, and James remembers that Maria Hill is just as dangerous as everyone else in this room.

“Steve’s an idiot sometimes,” Stark says, and James can’t help but smile a little at that, because he’s right, Steve _is_ an idiot, an idiot for thinking Lukin wanted James when all Schmidt had ever wanted was to be like Steve. 

A hatred that fierce is always tinged with envy.

Steve mumbles in his sleep, that worry line appearing between his eyebrows. James doesn’t think, just reaches out with his metal arm and takes Steve’s hand, only realising what he’s done when he looks down and sees the sliver resting on pink, smooth skin.

He has scars all over his body, James does, and only remembers where he got a fraction of them, but Steve’s scars all healed when he was given the serum. The spot on his leg where he’d skewered himself on an old spike at the docks (his ma had cleaned it out with antiseptic and Steve, stubborn punk, hadn’t made a sound), the busted knuckles from too many fights he could never win, the scrapes and the crooked pinky finger on his left hand that never healed right because the damned fool was too stubborn to get it properly seen to, hid it from his Ma because he didn’t want to worry her when he was all of eight years old.

The war years are like a film reel, tattered and torn, the only constant and true image is Steve, the only thing his fractured thoughts can hold onto is that he had a mission, and he failed it. They wiped him more times than he could ever hope to count, but patterns have stayed, burnt into his mind, following paths that were already warn through after years of his _mission_ (protect Steve, help Steve, take care of Steve).

They had been amazed at his ability to follow through missions even in the first few years. He had a tenacity and a determination that other assassins lacked. They’d been surprised when the wipes had not changed that about him, not knowing that there were some patterns that they would never be able to change.

Seeing him here, like this, tears at James’ heart.

 

_Steve had gone out, to get food or something, or just to have some space from the inevitability of death. Bucky hovered in Sarah’s doorway, not willing to leave her alone when she was this far gone, but feeling like he was intruding. Steve had been sleeping on the couch in the apartment for months, even though there was a draft there, even though it set off his asthma, because he didn’t want to disturb what little sleep Sarah managed to get, and Bucky knew for a fact that if Sarah knew that she’d gut him._

_“Bucky,” her voice was soft, but her breath didn’t have the hideous rattle they’d been hearing the last week or so. Bucky didn’t know if that was a good or a bad thing._

_“Mrs Rogers, Ma’am. Steve just stepped out to get…”_

_“I know Bucky,” she was whispering, you couldn’t hear the strength in her voice, and Bucky winced at how fragile it sounded, when he could remember the strength of her hand wielding a spoon to chase him away from her meagre garden, laughing, golden hair streaming behind her as she chastised the two boys she loved most in the world._

_Sarah Rogers had been more full of joy and laughter than anyone he’d ever known._

_“I’ll let you rest, Mrs Rogers,” he said, moving to shut the door and retreat, but Sarah raises her hand and beckons to him._

_“No, Bucky. I was hoping I’d get the chance to talk to you.”_

_He couldn’t have said he was surprised. She knew, about him and Steve, knew that they were in it for the long haul or whatever it is you have when you can’t imagine a moment without someone as anything other than missing a limb. She’d given him almost as much love as she’d given her flesh and blood son, over the years, unconditional and devoted, all that love she’d wanted to give to Joe before he’d died, the love she had for the patients she treated and the community around her._

_His parents had never gotten it. Sure they liked Sarah, and they shook their heads and looked sad whenever Joseph’s name came out “Such a shame young Stevie will never know a father’s guiding hand”  but his folks were respectable people, on the up, and George and Winnie Barnes, the best house in the neighbourhood, kids on the fast track to college…_

_If only their eldest would stop getting dragged into trouble by Steven Grant Rogers._

_Bucky came to Sarah’s bedside and she reached out, taking his hand. “You’ve been so good to us, Bucky,” she said softly. “You promise me you’ll look after Stevie when I’m gone?”_

_“You know it,” Bucky said._

_She laughs softly. “I shouldn’t have asked.”_

_“No ma’am, you shouldn’t have.”_

_“But you know why I did.”_

_“Yes.” It was easy to give a promise he’d always meant to keep._

_“You’re gonna go for a soldier one day Bucky Barnes,” she said then. “And you’ll have to leave him behind.”_

_“Steve wants to join up as well,” Bucky said._

_She gave him a look. Sarah Rogers wasn’t stupid, no more than her son was. “Steve will find a way to do what he needs to do, Bucky, and I want you to take care of him, but you don’t sell yourself short, son, you don’t only live his life because you love him, Steve wouldn’t want that.”_

_“I’ll look after him, Mrs Rogers,” Bucky said, squeezing her hand. She gave him another one of her brilliant smiles, the ones that were just like Steve’s, the kind that made the room light up and made you feel like you were the most special person in the world._

_It was the last one of those smiles he ever saw from Sarah Rogers._

_“He’ll look after you too, Bucky,” she said. “He’s a good boy, and he’ll look after you just fine.”_

 

“He’s waking up,” Dr Carter says. James blinks, looking down at the hand resting in his then at Steve’s face. He doesn’t understand why they think he’s waking up at first, until he hears the sounds of the monitors. He’s been subconsciously aware of them ever since he came in. Steve’s heart rate is going up, and the machines don’t seem to like it.

“James,” Sam is there, James didn’t even see him come in. How long has he been sitting here, lost in memory? He has his hand on James’ shoulder. “You should probably move back.”

He stands, intending to do that, but the grip on his hand tightens suddenly.

“No,” Steve’s voice is hoarse. “No, Bucky you have to stay here. Get everyone else out.”

“Steve what…?”

“I can’t get him out Bucky,” Steve says, and every word is dragged out of him, James can _hear_ the fight in it. “You’re going to have to help me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two more chapters to go folks! I must apologise again for the delays on these latest chapters, as I said I had a whole lot of work to do and we were away for a couple of weekends and suddenly this week just... flew by. I promise it will be finished, it's not abandoned!


	29. Chapter 29

Steve can see Bucky’s eyes, feel his metal hand against his throat, but he can’t stop himself from fighting against the grip that holds him, can’t make himself hold back. He’s grateful for the sedative coursing through him, even as he feels Schmidt rage against it. He can speak, but it’s hard. He can think, but it’s noisy.

“Remember,” he gasps out, even as he pushes against the metal arm with enhanced strength. “Remember that time Mrs McCarthy gave you a whole bucket of fish guts and told you to use it on the garden on Rochester and you ended up flinging it at Percy Hughes because he called me a mick…”

Bucky’s eyes are different. More tired. But they still have that spark of recognition in them. “Yeah, Steve,” he says. “He stank for days.”

Steve gasps for air even as he brings up a knee to Bucky’s groin. Bucky is too fast for him and ducks away, but he gives up his grip on Steve’s shoulders to do so. Steve lunges forward, swinging, but the blows are clumsy and Bucky easily deflects them.

“He beat me up two days later,” Steve says, dropping and attempting to sweep Bucky’s legs out from under him. Bucky catches his leg solidly and trips Steve forward and Steve is too slow to stop himself from slamming into the ground. A piece of medical machinery falls on top of him, and he scrambles back towards the door. Escape is Schmidt’s primary goal, Steve knows that. Once he gets away from Bucky’s face and the memories that it evokes it will be that much easier for him to gain complete control. Steve needs Bucky to stop him from going. Needs Bucky to touch him, ground him, _fight_ him.

“Yeah and I punched his lights out and told him I’d stuff the fish guts in his drawers if he ever laid hands on you again,” Bucky grabs Steve’s leg with the metal arm and hauls him back into the room, slamming him into the cot Steve was on as he does so. Steve feels skin tear on his side, ligaments screaming in the foot where Bucky is clutching him. He relishes the pain, because it is _his_ to feel, and Schmidt in his head howls. 

“Mrs McCarthy walloped us both for that,” Steve gasps out. “Hurt a lot more than getting punched by that metal hand of yours.”

Bucky gives a short bark of laughter, then backhands him with the metal arm. “Sure about that?”

Steve’s lip busts with the impact and he tastes blood, grins through it up at Bucky, who has scrambled up to sit astride him, pinning him in place as though they were sixteen again and wrestling on the floor of the schoolyard while the Sisters shouted and wrung their hands.

“Come on, Stevie,” Bucky says. “You never could beat me.”

“That’s cause you always fought dirty.”

“Says the kid who flung dirt into Charlie Porter’s eyes.” 

“He had it coming.”

Bucky grabs Steve by the hair and slams his head into the ground. “Cry uncle.”

“Shan’t,” Steve said back. Bucky sits there, holding him in place but not attempting to punch him any more. Desperately, Steve writhes up against him. “Buck you gotta hit me again.”

“I don’t want to hurt you Steve.”

Steve grunts and struggles. “I can’t fight it.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Bucky hits him with the non-metal hand this time, a punch that feels more like a caress. “You can fight any damned thing, Steve. You always could, even before the stupid serum.”

“Only because you were there to back me up.”

Bucky growls and hits him again. Steve shoves him backwards, and scrambles to a wall, standing up. He isn’t sure, any more, if _he’s_ the one fighting or Schmidt. Isn’t sure if he can even tell the difference. “They’ll get Bruce down here,” he says. “Bruce can take me down.”

Bucky vaults back up onto his feet and launches himself at Steve again. “No,” he says. Steve throws a punch that connects with Bucky’s jaw, sees blood bloom on his lip and cries out. 

_“Bucky…”_

Bucky has his metal hand around Steve’s throat, his flesh hand on Steve’s other arm. He slams him back against the wall, snarling in his face.

“You _fight_ him goddammit Steve, you don’t need me you never needed me _I_ need _you_ and if you don’t fight him now, I may as well give up.” Steve punches Bucky in the gut and Bucky knees him in the groin without letting out more than a grunt. “If you don’t fight him you’re not the man I remember, and if you’re not that man then what’s the damned point in me being here at all? You can just give me back to Hydra.”

 _“No._ Bucky.”

Bucky headbutts him, but it’s clumsy and too close, and Steve manages to get a grip on his flesh arm trying to shove him off or pull him closer, he really doesn’t know any more. “If you don’t fight back then Schmidt broke you just the way they broke me and you may as well stick yourself in a tube and wipe your memory, Steve, you may as well go back into the ice and damn us all to hell.” Steve shuts his eyes and Bucky shakes him until he opens them again, metal fingers hot against his throat. “So are you going to give up and let him win? Or,” Bucky squeezes his hand till Steve gasps and leans forward to hiss in his ear, “Or are you going to _stand the fuck up soldier._ ”

 _“Er kann mich nicht besiegen!”_ Steve knows that is not his voice and Bucky gives him a feral grin, as though this is exactly what he was waiting for, even as Steve shoves him back gasping for breath in a throat ravaged and bruised.

“He beat you seventy years ago, Schmidt,” Bucky says, dropping to that fighting crouch, ready to attack again despite the despair in his eyes. “You’re just taking your time about lying down.”

Steve’s fist draws back for another blow, shaking. Sweat is dripping into his eyes tinged with the red of blood and his breath rasps in his chest the way it did when he was fifteen and asthmatic. The rage coiling in his gut is provoking him to punch, to hit, to claw, but he _won’t_ hurt Bucky any more, he won’t leave him here by himself, he won’t let him think he’s not worth it. His fist shakes as he forces it down by his side, the effort to stop Schmidt’s rage forcing him to his knees and he clutches at his head, as if he can physically force Schmidt out. 

 _You cannot kill me,_ Schmidt says. _I am part of you._

 _Fine,_ Steve says back, gritting his teeth. _Then stay here forever._ Steve focuses and bears down, feels Bucky’s fingers on his arm, metal flung across his shoulders, embracing him, supporting him. 

“I’m right here, pal,” Bucky says. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Steve leans into the embrace, breathing deeply. Inside he can feel Schmidt thrashing and coiling, but Steve can contain it, it’s just another demon, another voice he can ignore.

“Captain?” Steve glances up, to see Maria and Sam, and more importantly, Dr Banner in the doorway. He is part relieved and part anxious that it’s Banner and not Hulk, although his glasses and his coat are off, and Steve figures Hulk is very near the surface.

“It’s all right,” Bucky says, eyeing Banner with a lot of trepidation. “He’s got this.”

“Steve?” Sam asks.

Steve nods. “I’m fine, Sam.”

“You look like shit, Cap,” Sam says, and Steve lets out a laugh. 

“I could do this all day,” he says and Bucky chuckles at that, shaking his head. They’re both bleeding, Steve thinks he might have fractured Bucky’s jaw, his ribs hurt and his head aches, but Schmidt’s voice is being drowned out by the sound of friends. Familiar voices, old and new.

Sam is there, offering him a hand to stand up. Not just him either, Sam’s holding down two hands, one for Bucky as well. Steve swallows and watches as Bucky hesitates for a second, then takes it, and Steve does the same. They stand, and Sam looks into Steve’s eyes, finding something in there that makes him crack that crooked, gap toothed smile. 

“Yeah well,” Sam says. “It’s a good thing you don’t have to.”


	30. Chapter 30

Steve shows up at the apartment a day later, looking beat up but not as bad as he had on the side of the Potomac. They’d given it to each other pretty good, completely destroyed the medical room as well as fracturing three of Bucky’s ribs and dislocating Steve’s ankle. They’re black and blue, like two kids street fighting in the dust of Brooklyn’s summer, but older, and it doesn’t hurt as much, and it hurts much worse than that.

Steve looks tired, but not unhappy. James can’t really figure what it could have been like, to have Schmidt there, in his head. Morse says he’s still there, too, told him when James asked, the energy patterns are present and she and Stark and Dr Banner are working on some way to keep him contained or get him out for good without wiping Steve too. Morse had said that Steve didn’t want them to fuss too much about it, and James had laughed when they’d told him because he’d been right, during the fight, Schmidt had been beaten the moment Steve took up the shield and there is no way he’s going to get the better of him now.

“How’re you doing Buck?” he says, and Sam and Natasha and Morse are all calling him James, now, and he wonders if he should ask Steve to do it too but there’s something about the way he says it, something in the tilt of his head, the slight question, that makes him hesitate. Anyone else used that name and it wouldn’t be his. Only Steve was around when that Bucky was alive, and it means something to him to be able to call him by that name, and it means something to James to make Steve happier than the sorry bastard has been since he found himself here, out of time, without James to look out for him.

“Been worse,” James says, stepping back to invite him in. Steve’s walking with a slight limp which looks weird to James, jarring with images he has in his head. Even when he was beat up and bleeding in Brooklyn he’d never let it show in his walk, even when he was shot twice through the gut by the soldier’s own guns he hadn’t faltered in his steps or stood any less straight as he told him to his face that he wouldn’t fight him any longer, that somehow he was a _friend._

Sometimes when he looks at Steve he sees three people and he has to blink to try to remember where he is — skinny, mouthy punk Steve shines through sometimes and it makes James’ breath catch but he doesn’t really know, now, if he’d give anything to have that Steve back, not when the world had done its best to beat him into the ground.

Still, there are things about Steve Rogers that James doesn’t know any more. “You?” James asks.

Steve gives him a cheeky fucking grin. “Been better,” he says.

“The doctors are all wanting to stick wires in your head and purge you,” James says. “Kill Schmidt. Gotta tell you I don’t recommend it, if you can avoid it.”

Steve shrugs. “I can contain him,” he says. “This might not be the body I was born with but I’ll be damned if anyone else is gonna use it but me.”

James’ lips twist in a bitter smile at that, bodies and what they’re used for, weapons and soldiers. They know too much about _that_ for fifty of their unnatural lifespans.

He indicates that Steve should sit in the armchair, but Steve just perches on the bed instead, fixing James with a steady gaze, cocky lift of the chin reminding him of tiny, earnest Steve, trying to explain to Bucky why it was a good idea for him to train him. _You’re the best, Buck, if they can see I can fight even if I’m small they’ve gotta give me a chance, right?_ “What are you going to convince me to do, Stevie?” he says, and Steve snorts a surprised laugh, eyes sparkling.

“You’re not even gonna try to argue with me?”

“Oh I’ll do it for old times sake,” James says. “But I know better than to think I’m gonna win.”

Steve’s grin widens before it fades. “I’ve got a spare bedroom in my apartment,” Steve says, then holds up a hand to stop James from an argument that James wasn’t even going to make. “You don’t have to come straight away. But it’s there. And I’d like it to be yours.”

James would be lying if he says this is a surprise to him. He looks around the lavish room that Stark has given him and wonders if Steve has managed to make his own apartment look anything other than something straight out of a catalogue, wonders if it’s full of undersized shirts and war bonds posters. Wonders if he’s swimming in nostalgia or trying to forget it all, like James sometimes thinks he should.

“I’ve only been there a few weeks,” Steve continues. “My apartment in DC kinda has a few holes in the walls and Tony says the Avengers really need to be based in New York, if only because they remember the invasion. You’d be safer here than in DC too, less chance of anyone recognising you, especially if you cut your hair.”

“Steve…”

“I don’t like the idea of you sleeping here. With no one but Jarvis to hear. I know you can’t remember much from after Azzano but…”

James holds up a hand. “I can remember enough,” he says. He can remember waking in cold sweats, reaching out for the solid presence of Steve in the tent beside him from the dreams, even if he can’t remember the dreams themselves. 

There’s an unspoken second choice, and James needs to hear it spoken aloud.

“If I said no would they just turn me loose?” 

Steve doesn’t hesitate, and that’s what he’s always loved about him, that he didn’t see the point in softening the blow, if the blow was going to come anyway. “No, Buck. You’re not a prisoner, but you’re not exactly free, you gotta know that.”

He looks down at his metal fingers. “Damned sight more free than I was a few weeks ago, pal.”

Steve looks uncomfortable at that. “I’m working on it,” he says. 

He _would_ think James could just walk away from this and live a normal life.

“Steve I’m a mass murderer, I think staying in your luxury apartment isn’t exactly gonna be a prison sentence.”

He gets that stubborn set to his jaw. “You’re not a murderer.”

“See now’s the point where I realise it’s dumb tryin’ to argue with ya,” James says. “Because you know damned well that I am.”

He was a murderer the first shot he took at Azzano, a thousand times that after, when Phillips hauled him up and told him how he would have to do the things Steve Rogers couldn’t be seen to do. He was a murderer at Kronos, for Hydra, he orphaned Aleks and murdered his future and he was doing his best to murder James Buchanan Barnes with every thing he did that hurt Steve Rogers.

And _that_ didn’t even start to describe the murders he’d done as the Winter Soldier. Steve believes Bucky and the Soldier are completely different people. He thinks James doesn’t have to feel the guilt of the deaths on his hands, but James knows better.

Steve is watching him, those stupidly blue eyes far, far too calculating. “You _think_ you are, and that’s all that matters,” Steve says, and James blinks. “Isn’t it?” 

James opens his mouth, then frowns. He’s forgotten too many things about Steve, he’s forgotten that for all he was a stubborn mule he was _smart_ and he _knew Bucky Barnes_ and he _understood people._

James figures that means he must be a person and not a weapon any more, that Steve Rogers can look at him and work out what’s going on in his head. 

“I’m not gonna run.”

“I wouldn’t stop you if you did,” Steve says softly. “But.”

“Somebody would.”

A small smile, then. “Somebody would try. And most of the people they’d send after you are my friends.”

James turns to the window, looking down at the city. He’s spent too long in the tube, too long not able to roam freely, and part of him wants to. Part of him wants to run as far away as he can from Steve Rogers and his Avengers and the therapy sessions that he hates, and Natasha Romanoff’s too familiar face and Sam Wilson’s gap toothed smile and Tony Stark’s insufferable arrogance. There’s more though, and it’s not because they’re so high up (he’d always hated heights) it’s because the world is so huge and he feels like he’s falling and he needs something solid to stand on for a little while or he’s lose himself in the noise of his own mind.

“Will you take the room?” Steve is beside him, looking down at the city, and he _smells_ the same as he did back in Brooklyn, like fresh leaves and sunlight. For the first time since Azzano the heat coming from him doesn’t feel strong enough to burn. They’ve both had their time in the ice. Now it’s time to thaw.

James takes a slow breath. Looks up into his face. “Yeah. I’ll take it.”

Steve’s face lights up like the sun, and James will do anything to make that happen again and again and again, from now until forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading. I'm going to set a posting schedule for my next long fic and make sure I have more of a buffer for people reading, so you don't get ten chapters and then none for a month (so sorry about that!), although it will be Spitfire/Blade focused so might not appeal to the Steve/Bucky people (Steve and Bucky will probably show up, since I love me my cameos). There will also probably be a few drabbles every now and then, like the "What Makes me Happy" series (although probably not smut). I had a ball writing this, and I'll never be able to leave these two goobers alone.


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